


Life, and Death, and Giants

by myglassballoon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Co-Dependency, M/M, Nightmares, There will be a happy ending, but nice dreams too, dead in this case doesn't mean gone, ghost au, please don't run because of the character death tag, really it'll be fine, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2018-12-03 13:11:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11532933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myglassballoon/pseuds/myglassballoon
Summary: He flew over the ice, following the music into jumps and twists. The routine had become so familiar over the years that it hurt, the ease with which he carried out each element a sharp reminder of the feeling of being lost that had forced him to repeat this program over and over until it had become as much a part of him as it had been of Viktor.-Yuuri thinks about retiring when Phichit persuades him to visit Viktor's home rink in St. Petersburg, where he finds more than he bargained for.Yes, Viktor is technically dead in this AU, but that doesn't mean that he isn't walking, talking, and having an impact on people's lives.Rated Mature for violence and sexual themes.





	1. One need not be a chamber to be haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this fic is from Emily Dickinson's poem of the same name.
> 
> Chapter title from Emily Dickinson's "Ghosts".

 

 

The tiles in the men’s toilet of Sochi’s Iceberg Skating Palace arena were of a pearly white, unusually clean for a semi-public bathroom. Yuuri fixed his eyes on the tiles between two of the mirrors over the sinks to avoid catching his own reflection. He knew his eyes must be red. He felt streaks of tears dry on his cheeks, and the sensation made his skin feel dry and irritated. He turned on the tap and let cool water run over his hands before splashing it on his face. The cold water made him feel better – clean, almost ready to leave the bathroom and face Celestino and the countless other people who were still milling about the stadium.

Yuuri was glad that no one had come in while he had cried in one of the stalls after calling his family. Hearing his mother’s voice as she told him about the friends and neighbours who had watched him skate live on television had made him acutely aware of the disappointment he was. He had qualified for the Grand Prix Final only to succumb to his nerves, botch his jumps, and place last. It must have been painful to watch for his family, who had always supported him in his dream to skate professionally. Now, at twenty-three, his career was mediocre at best, and with his latest failure hurting like a fresh wound, Yuuri, for the first time in his life, thought of retiring in earnest.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Yuuri knew that there was a chance he was being too hard on himself. His dog had died just before the Final and he felt both sad and horribly guilty for not having seen Vicchan one last time. He had kept putting going home off and now his dog was dead, he was a disappointment to his family, his coach, and himself, and his career was likely over. Maybe Vicchan’s death was a sign that he really should retire. After all, the dog had been named after Yuuri’s childhood skating idol – and he was dead as well.

Yuuri swallowed hard and pushed the thought of Viktor aside. He had kept Celestino waiting long enough, he couldn’t afford to waste any more time crying in a bathroom.

 

Later that day Yuuri found himself wearing an uncomfortable suit, standing in a large hotel conference room packed with people. Celestino had persuaded him to go to the banquet as an opportunity to mingle with other skaters as well as potential sponsors. Yuuri had no desire to talk to anyone, and even if he did he would have found it difficult to strike up a conversation with any of the skaters present. Celestino had led him into the room, an encouraging hand on his shoulder, and handed him a glass of champagne that Yuuri sipped from just so he would have something to do. After a few minutes Celestino joined a small group of other coaches in their discussion, and Yuuri looked around the room, pretending to be busier than he was.

He walked around the room slowly, now drinking his second glass of champagne, carefully avoiding the eyes of possible sponsors in their bespoke suits or designer dresses. He couldn’t face anyone asking him about his plans for the next season. He stood next to one of the drinks tables, as close to the wall as he could without leaning against it, his gaze wandering over the nearby groups of people.

Loud laughter made him turn his head to the group to his left. A middle-aged man wearing a light-grey suit and a bright pink tie was patting the shoulder of the younger man next to him in appreciation of what must have been a particularly good joke. Yuuri looked away but could not help overhearing the next sentence the first man said, still chuckling: “You’re right, that Plisetsky boy could easily be the next Nikiforov!”

Yuuri felt his stomach drop. He knew the man had meant it as a compliment. Viktor had been a legend before his death cut his career short. Being compared to him was almost as high a praise as winning a gold medal. Still, the nonchalant way the man had used Viktor’s name caused a sudden dull pain which, despite being emotional, Yuuri could almost feel in his chest. He emptied the glass of champagne he was holding and grabbed a new one from the table, taking several long gulps. Getting drunk to make himself forget his worries, even if only temporarily, was not what he had planned to do, but it felt like an attractive option now.

Yuuri began to aimlessly wander around the room once more, a nagging worry that he might hear Viktor’s name again burrowing through his drowsy head. Being affected like this by something as simple as hearing the name ‘Nikiforov’ unexpectedly made him feel guilty. He hadn’t known Viktor, not personally. He had seen him a few times at different events but they had never exchanged a single world. Yuuri didn’t have the right to still be upset about his death so many years later, not when some of Viktor’s former rinkmates were in the same room.

He drank more, allowing the alcohol to cloud over his guilt. The champagne didn’t make him happy, but after a while he found that he couldn’t pinpoint exactly _why_ he was feeling sad.

He carried on around the room, walking slowly and keeping to himself, trying not to think about anything. Thinking only made him feel sad. Thoughts of Viktor, thoughts of his own career, thoughts of his family, they all made him feel guilty and pessimistic.

He had lost count of the glasses he had drained and the number hardly seemed to matter. When he saw the first few people leave, Yuuri let his gaze wander around the room in search of Celestino. It took him a while to locate his coach and when he approached him he tripped and would have fallen if he hadn’t instinctively held on to Celestino’s shoulders.

“I think I’m going upstairs,” he said, mildly surprised at the level of concentration required to enunciate properly. He was suddenly glad that Celestino had booked rooms in the same hotel that the banquet was held in.

“I think that is a good idea.” Celestino looked at him for a moment, and Yuuri thought he saw worry on his face. It was never a good sign when Celestino was worried. It meant that Yuuri had disappointed him. Yuuri felt the corners of his mouth droop.

“Should I come with you?” Celestino asked, the worry now unmistakable in his voice. Yuuri shook his head, which made him feel unpleasantly dizzy. He mumbled something about being fine and left before Celestino could insist on helping.

Yuuri found his room without a problem despite the brief ride on the lift that made him realise how drunk he was when his head and stomach protested at the lift’s soft jerks. After fumbling for the key card for a moment he let himself into his room and remembered to draw the curtains before fighting his way out of his suit and tie. He overbalanced when he tried to take off his trousers without sitting down, and ended up on the floor, where he struggled with his shoes for a moment before he managed to get rid of the trousers. Standing up again proved difficult, and he did it too quickly, his head spinning painfully. A sudden sour taste in his mouth gave him just enough warning to hastily stumble to the bathroom before he emptied his stomach into the toilet bowl. When it was over he spit and flushed the toilet. He hadn’t felt this sick in a long time, and certainly not from alcohol.

Several minutes passed before Yuuri was confident he could stand up. He held on to the sink and drank directly from the tap which helped with the taste in his mouth. Sitting back down slowly he leaned against the door but gave in quickly and allowed himself to flop onto the floor, the tiles cool against his hot face.

He was exhausted. After the physical exertion of the free skate, the emotional pain of losing, the shock at hearing Viktor mentioned, and now the nausea and vomiting, he felt drained. His thoughts churned in his mind in dark circles and he fell into uneasy sleep for a while. When he woke up in the middle of the night he was cold and clammy, and he could feel the beginnings of a headache that would haunt him the following day. He dragged himself into the main room and collapsed onto the bed, glad when sleep washed his thoughts away again.

 

Several weeks passed and Yuuri was unable to shake his loss at the Grand Prix Final. The rest of the season had not gone well for him and he had been thinking about retiring more frequently. He hoped that he had reached his lowest point in Sochi on the day of the banquet. He didn’t remember much of the night but he had awoken the next day with a hammering headache and the knowledge that he had cried and vomited before falling asleep. He had felt sorry for himself then, scared that his career might be over, ashamed by the effect that hearing Viktor Nikiforov mentioned still had on him. Returning to Detroit had not chased either of these things from his mind and he had had a serious conversation with Celestino about his future.

His coach was understanding and supportive, but urged him to delay retiring for at least another season. Now Yuuri had to make a decision. He could chose to retire, to escape the pressure of competitions, maybe visit his family in Japan and help out at the onsen while he figured out what he would do next. Or he could decide to compete in the next season, facing the possibility that he would fail again, but also standing a fighting chance that his career might be revived instead. In order for that to happen, he would need to find new inspiration, something to set him apart from the hundreds of other talented skaters in the world.

Perhaps that was the problem. He was one of many, nothing special. Why would he succeed where countless others had failed before him? In the many sleepless hours he spent sitting on his bed in the small flat he shared with Phichit, Yuuri’s spiralling thoughts inevitably reached the same conclusion every night: There were some people who were special, who were able to mesmerise everyone who watched them skate – and he was simply not like that. Viktor Nikiforov had undoubtedly been one of those people. Yuuri knew that Viktor must have trained harder than every other skater to become the legend he had been. But there had been something else about him as well, something that no amount of training could have given him. Yuuri remembered seeing Viktor skate and forgetting everything else around him. When Viktor had skated, he had been the single most important person in the world and no one would have doubted it. That was why it still hurt to think about him. His performances had radiated love for the sport and a beauty that Yuuri had never seen in anyone else since, because it had died with Viktor.

Yuuri had discussed his feelings and his uncertainty with Phichit, who promptly came up with a plan to persuade Yuuri to delay his retirement. Phichit was one of the few people who knew how important Viktor had always been to Yuuri’s skating career. Seeing him skate on television as a child had inspired Yuuri to work hard and enter the professional skating world. The Russian prodigy had soon become his idol and Yuuri had wanted nothing more than to skate on the same ice as him some day. When his death had made Yuuri’s dream an impossibility, Yuuri had begun training harder than ever to honour his memory.

Phichit knew that for Yuuri, skating and Viktor Nikiforov were inseparably intertwined. For that reason he had suggested they visit Viktor’s home rink in St. Petersburg to rekindle Yuuri’s passion for skating. When Yuuri had declined, Phichit had brought up the topic every day, pointing out again and again that, even if flying to Russia would not persuade Yuuri to continue competing, it couldn’t do him any harm either. The least they would get out of it was a short vacation, which they both needed and deserved, Phichit argued.

In the end, Yuuri allowed himself to be persuaded. The idea had been tempting to him since the first time Phichit had mentioned it. What held him back was his fear of what the Russian skaters at Viktor’s home rink would think of him when he showed up there to see where his idol had trained. He had the overwhelming feeling that he had no right to feel so affected by Viktor and his skating and he was almost certain that those who had known Viktor in person would despise him for it.

 

Despite his worries, in late March Yuuri found himself on an intercontinental flight to Europe, Phichit settling into the seat next to him. Time passed slowly on the flight and a heavy feeling settled on Yuuri. He couldn’t concentrate on reading or watching a film, and he was unable to fall asleep. Staring out the window at the dark night sky his mind wandered to a grey afternoon in Hasetsu nine years ago, to the memories he usually kept locked up in the back of his mind, not allowing himself access to them.

He had stayed at Ice Castle after training to spend some time with Yuuko. His coach at the time had praised his progress on a difficult step sequence that day, and he had been happy when he changed back into his normal clothes in the small changing room. The rink had been closed to the public that day but Yuuko already worked at Ice Castle some afternoons after school, and the rink’s owner had allowed her and Yuuri to spend as much time there as they liked as long as they locked up after themselves. When Yuuri left the changing room, he had immediately known that something was wrong. Yuuko and Minako had been standing next to the door waiting for him, and Yuuko had been crying. Before Yuuri could ask what had happened, Minako had told him:

“It’s Viktor Nikiforov. Yuuri, he’s dead.“

Yuuri hadn’t understood the meaning of her words right away. It was as if they reached him though a thicker substance than air, slowing them down and making it hard to comprehend what they meant. Minako had continued to talk and Yuuko had taken him by the sleeve of his jacket and walked with him to the old television set they often watched skating competitions on. She had turned it on, the familiar channel already selected. Pictures of flowers on the ground outside a building easily recognisable as an ice rink were the first thing Yuuri had seen.

A reporter spoke over the images, beginning in the middle of a sentence when Yuuko had switched on the television.

“… and tokens laid down by fans. News of Nikiforov’s death came earlier today when an official statement was made by the St. Petersburg police, informing the press that Nikiforov’s body had been recovered from his home rink just before midnight local time.”

Just before midnight in St. Petersburg meant early morning in Hasetsu. Yuuri had felt the world shift when he had realised that Viktor had been dead the entire day without him noticing. He had helped out at the onsen, laughed at his sister’s jokes, and gone to training as on every other normal Sunday. It felt deeply wrong that he could have spent a day like any other while his idol’s body grew cold and stiff in a mortuary in Russia. St. Petersburg had never felt further away.

The news report had carried on, showing a man in a police uniform speak at a hastily organised press conference. The Japanese translator relayed that Viktor had been training alone when unknown persons had broken a window at the back of the building. Viktor had suffered a single gunshot into the abdomen and died at the rink. An anonymous caller had informed emergency services who had been unable to resuscitate the athlete.

The report speculated that Viktor’s death may have been the result of a kidnapping gone awry, but it hardly mattered. Yuuri had stared at the screen, silently begging the universe to change back to what it was supposed to be.

 

The plane touched down and Yuuri and Phichit found their way out of the airport, tired and disoriented. Phichit took care of finding them a taxi and communicating to the driver where they needed to go. It was early enough in the morning for traffic to be light and the journey to their hotel did not take long. Yuuri watched the unfamiliar city fly by outside the car. The sun was just rising somewhere on the horizon hidden behind increasingly impressive buildings as they approached the city centre. In the blue tinge of morning the city looked desaturated and Yuuri found it suited him well. The city was in an in-between stage, just before the beginning of the new day, just like Yuuri was on the cusp of making a decision that would determine his actions for the next year.

They arrived at the hotel and quickly found their shared room where they changed into pyjamas and lay down for a few hours. Yuuri slept dreamlessly, curled up on the hotel bed. When the alarm on Phichit’s phone woke them both up, Yuuri let his friend use the shower first, and spent a few more minutes drifting in and out of shallow sleep. He felt truly awake for the first time since arriving in Russia when it was his turn to take a shower and he let cold water wash the journey off of his body.

They walked around the now much more populated streets until they found a café where they sat down for a quick lunch before taking the metro to the home rink of St. Petersburg’s international figure skaters. Yuuri had been quiet during lunch, and when they stepped outside the metro station closest to the rink he knew he would have turned around and left if Phichit had not been with him. His friend was watching him as they walked towards their destination.

“You’re worried. Why?” Phichit asked. Yuuri didn’t answer right away. It was difficult to put his feelings into words.

“I feel like maybe I shouldn’t be here. I didn’t know him. His former rink mates – I don’t think they’ll like some weird foreign guy running around their rink because he thinks that might somehow make it easier for him to decide whether or not he should quit skating competitively.”

Phichit nodded. “I understand what you mean. But there’s no need to worry. I’ve been talking to Georgi Popovitch and he says it’ll be fine. He knew Viktor and he doesn’t mind us visiting. No one who wouldn’t want us there will be at the rink, I promise. Training for today ended almost an hour ago. Georgi told me he would meet us and let everyone else know we’d come visit so they could leave or stay.”

Yuuri breathed out, feeling partially relieved. Since Phichit had suggested going to Russia he had been the one to organise their stay. Yuuri trusted Phichit to make sure that everything worked out alright. If Phichit said they were not unwelcome then that was probably true.

They rounded a corner and the building they were headed for came into view. Phichit didn’t say anything but he took Yuuri’s arm and linked it with his own. Yuuri was glad for the comfort of the familiar gesture.

The building itself had not changed much since Yuuri had seen it on television all those years ago. Only the flowers that had been lying on the ground in the months after Viktor’s death had disappeared over time. In their stead, a small bronze statue of a single skate stood not far from the main door. Neither Yuuri nor Phichit could read the Cyrillic writing on the plaque under the statue but they could imagine what it said. They stood in silence for a while. Yuuri tried to make sense of the feelings that seeing the bronze skate had brought up in him. Of course he had known that it was there, and yet seeing it in person was something else entirely than seeing pictures online. He was glad that it was here, a memorial for someone who had inspired thousands of people with his art. It was a good way to remind passers-by of the loss the skating world had suffered. While Yuuri was thankful for the small statue’s existence, it also served to remind him of what could have been. Ever since the first time he had seen Viktor skate, he had wanted to skate on the same ice as him, compete against him. Not to beat him but rather to share an experience with him. Viktor’s death had not led Yuuri to give up on skating but seeing him commemorated here at his home rink made Yuuri’s heart ache with the weight of nine years that should have been different. Viktor should have been there, not for Yuuri to compete against, but for everyone who enjoyed skating to appreciate his talent and hard work. And for Viktor himself who had been young, younger than Yuuri was now. His life should have stretched out before him, years and years of it. Now all that was left of Viktor Nikiforov was his past.

“Should we go inside?”

Yuuri nodded and they walked towards the door together, where Georgi Popovich was waiting for them. They had met before at international skating events but they didn’t know each other well. Yuuri was glad to have Phichit with him, who effortlessly started a conversation, lightening the mood.

“Is anyone else still here?” Phichit asked when they reached a changing room.

“Two others are still around. They were friends with Viktor too and wanted to meet you. They’re on the ice now. Just come through when you’re ready” Georgi said casually. He left them alone to change their clothes.

“See, he’s nice. He doesn’t mind us being here,” Phichit said with a broad smile. Yuuri nodded. He felt better now that he had met Georgi who hadn’t looked at him like he was doing something inappropriate. Some of the heaviness he had been feeling was slowly dissolving.

They left the changing room and walked through to the rink, where Georgi was leaning on the barrier around the ice, talking to the other two skaters who had stayed. Yuuri recognised both of them although he had never competed against either. The world of figure skating wasn’t that big – good skaters knew each other’s faces.

“This is Mila Babicheva,” Georgi introduced them nonetheless, “and Yuri Plisetsky.”

The red-haired girl smiled and shook their hands, the younger blond boy just nodded.

“Do you want to warm up? Go ahead, we were just messing around anyway,” Mila said. Phichit agreed enthusiastically, took off his skate guards and stepped onto the ice. Yuuri followed him, feeling strange about it. This had been Viktor’s ice. This was where he had worked on those performances that had enthralled Yuuri and the rest of the world.

Yuuri tried not to let his thoughts show on his face as he followed Phichit onto the cold hard surface, where the blades of the Russian skaters had left narrow grooves during the day’s training. They glided over the ice, warming up their muscles.

In some ways it was just like skating at any other rink. The ice didn’t feel different under Yuuri’s feet, the temperature was what he was used to, and it was a standard size rink. At the same time Yuuri felt a significance in the air that he had lost, maybe during the last season, perhaps earlier than that. This was what he could do, what let him forget his worries; this was what he loved. Phichit had been right when he had suggested that skating in St. Petersburg might remind Yuuri of how important the sport was to him.

Yuuri passed Phichit on the ice and smiled at him, his face open and relaxed, and he could see in Phichit’s broad grin that he understood. The question whether he would retire was far from answered, but Yuuri felt more reluctant to let go of his career just yet.

When they had warmed up, Georgi asked Yuuri to show him his approach to a complex step sequence he had used in his short program from the last season. The others watched for a while until Phichit and Mila decided to try some lifts together. Yuri Plisetsky joined them on the ice, going through jumps on his own. Yuuri knew that the younger skater would join the senior division in the coming season and he had not a sliver of a doubt that he would present an impressive debut. His jumps were almost always successful and very near technical perfection. Yuuri remembered the man from the banquet who had referred to him as ‘the next Nikiforov’. He had not been wrong. Yuuri could see the same determination in the boy that Viktor had exuded on the ice.

“Hey, Yuuri!” Mila and Phichit came skating towards them. “You were a big fan of Viktor’s right?”

Yuuri nodded, worried for a second that Mila might find it offensive, but her tone was casual.

“Is it true that you know all his programs by heart?”

“Where did you hear that?” He asked, wondering why anyone would think that.

Mila shrugged. “I don’t know, someone at an event might have mentioned it?”

“I don’t know all his programs by heart. Only two.” Yuuri tried not to sound defensive.

“Which ones?” Mila asked.

“The short program from his senior debut. It was the first program I saw him skate. And…”

“And the last one?”

Yuuri nodded again.

Mila seemed to think for a moment. She was looking at Yuuri as if she was searching for something.

“Would you show us?”

A wave of uncomfortable feelings washed over Yuuri the second she closed her mouth.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure it would be… appropriate.”

Mila waved the thought away with a hand. “Of course it’s appropriate! We don’t mind, right?” Georgi shook his head, and Yuri said “whatever” with a brief nonchalant shrug of one shoulder.

“See? Listen, we play the music at least once a week anyway. To remind us to work hard, you know? To remember him. I would love to see that program again. I’m sure you do it justice, so please?”

Mila seemed to genuinely want to see him skate the program. The last program Viktor had competed with, and that Yuuri had skated again and again and again until it had ingrained itself so deeply into his muscle memory that he could have skated it in his sleep. Indeed, in the months after Viktor’s death, when he had skated the routine every day because he felt like he had to, he had dreamed about it many times.

Phichit smiled at him encouragingly as if to say ‘this is what we came here for, isn’t it?’.

“Alright,” Yuuri said.

Mila rushed to the stands and connected her phone to the portable speakers standing there. The others cleared the ice, leaving Yuuri alone in the centre of the rink.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Mila called.

Yuuri took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and let the memories wash over him. When he opened them again he assumed the starting pose, kneeling on the ice, head bowed as if in prayer to some deity of the ice. Several seconds passed, and Mila pressed the play button on her phone, the first notes of the music sounding through the empty rink. Yuuri tilted his body sideways, extending one leg, rising out of his kneeling position in one fluid motion.

He remembered how long it had taken him to get this first part right, to make it look effortless, elegant, just a hair’s width from careless. He flew over the ice, following the music into jumps and twists. The routine had become so familiar over the years that it hurt, the ease with which he carried out each element a sharp reminder of the feeling of being lost that had forced him to repeat this program over and over until it had become as much a part of him as it had been of Viktor. His theme for the season had been change and metamorphosis, and Yuuri could still see the picture the newspapers had used after his death, of Viktor with his newly short hair. He had cut it only days before the Grand Prix Final, undoubtedly to surprise everyone who would have watched his performance. It would have been spectacular, meaningful on a level beyond the performance, to see Viktor skate after cutting his hair. His coach had confirmed that Viktor had planned to wear a hood that he had designed specifically for the last performances of the season. He would have entered the rink with the hood on, hiding his hair, and only taken it off during the performance, revealing his changed appearance to his audience.

Yuuri could see Viktor perform the very routine Yuuri was skating now, as clear in his mind as a film. The music filled Yuuri up, and he used his body to paint the mournful sounds of the violin onto the ice. It was a sad piece of music that had been intended to represent some change in Viktor’s life, perhaps leaving behind childhood and adolescence for good, but these days it was played as a reminder of Viktor’s loss.

He soared across the ice, feeling four pairs of eyes on him, but they were not the ones he was skating for. Even after admiring Viktor for years and going through his final routine countless times, what Yuuri felt now was entirely new to him. He had never spent much thought on what it would be like to skate this program in St. Petersburg but he knew that if he had, he could not have anticipated this. The wave of emotion that hit him so hard it was like a physical force was unlike anything he had felt before. It was grief, and melancholy, and at the same time a deep appreciation and love for being able to have this moment for himself. It must have been the significance of this place, where Viktor had spent so much time, that made Yuuri feel as though he was skating not just according to his own memories, but someone else’s.

Before he started Yuuri had been determined to skate this program better than he ever had before so that the three Russian skaters would see how much it meant to him. Now that he was skating it was easy. He felt the strain on his body and he still had to concentrate to land every jump but the core of the program, the emotions behind it, came naturally and he welcomed them, for once completely unashamed of letting everyone see how he truly felt.

The last notes of the song filled the air and Yuuri came to a halt, reluctant to stop yet content in the knowledge that this was what the routine had always supposed to look and feel like. He looked over to the others and caught a brief glimpse of Yuri Plisetsky’s face before he stormed off. He looked angry and the door slammed shut behind him with a bang.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri said quietly, his voice barely more than a whisper. “I didn’t mean…”

“He’s not mad at you.” Mila’s head was turned to where Plisetsky had disappeared. “He just doesn’t want us to see him cry.”

Yuuri skated over to them, suddenly feeling lost alone on the ice.

“That was beautiful,” Georgi said. He wiped tears from his face and laughed. Mila was looking at him as if he had changed in her eyes while he skated.

“Honestly Yuuri, it was perfect,” she said.

 

Yuuri and Phichit returned to their hotel to freshen up and change their clothes. Mila and Georgi had asked them to join them for dinner at a restaurant the Russian skaters often ate at. Yuuri didn’t speak much during dinner and no one tried to pressure him to contribute more to the conversation, which he was silently grateful for. The other three skaters were having fun regardless, swapping stories and enjoying the delicious food.

After they had eaten and sat around the table sipping drinks, Yuuri gave himself a push and cleared his throat.

“About Yuri Plisetsky,” he said, not entirely sure how to say what he felt needed to be said. “I know you said he wasn’t mad at me but would you mind telling him I’m sorry when you see him? I didn’t mean to upset anyone.”

“We know. Don’t feel bad about it,” Georgi said, running a finger around the rim of his glass absentmindedly. “He and Vitya were kind of close. Yuri was only six at the time and he was new in town. He and his grandfather had moved here so Yuri could train under Yakov, so he didn’t know anyone. Vitya was the only one who really took him seriously, you know? Even though he was just a kid, the youngest at the rink. They were almost like brothers for a while.” Yuuri could imagine it vividly, a six-year-old Yuri Plisetsky, small but already determined to skate better than everyone else.

“Yura doesn’t have any siblings and neither did Vitya. They didn’t know each other for very long but out of all of us I think losing him was hardest for Yura.” Mila’s voice was quiet and very serious, and Yuuri could tell that what she said was true.

“I didn’t know. I’m really sorry,” he said.

“No, don’t be. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was really wonderful to see you skate his program. It was just very similar to how he used to do it. I think we were all taken by surprise.” Mila smiled at him and raised her glass. “To Vitya,” she said “it’s cheesy but it’s obvious he’ll never be forgotten. Right?”

They clinked their glasses and drank in silence.

Later when they had once again returned to their room at the hotel, Phichit hugged Yuuri tightly. “I know today meant a lot to you,” he whispered in his ear.

Yuuri nodded against his shoulder, glad to have his best friend with him, who always seemed to know when Yuuri needed a hug. After they had gone to bed, Yuuri’s thoughts, slightly muddled from the two glasses of wine he’d had at dinner, were pulled back to Yuri Plisetsky and Viktor. He lay in the dark and he could see the blond boy’s face back at the rink, in the moment before he had turned around and left. He had seen Yuuri perform Viktor’s program and wished they could swap places – Viktor on the ice and Yuuri gone. Yuuri couldn’t blame him. Viktor had been the golden child of figure skating and even now Yuuri found it impossible to understand how he could have died a violent and pointless death that ended it all.

Everybody knew that, given the chance, Viktor Nikiforov would have beaten every record of the sport, performing programs that would have shocked the world with their perfection. Meanwhile Yuuri was thinking about ending his career at twenty-three, having achieved nothing of importance. The unfairness of it all threatened to suffocate him, and he struggled to keep his breathing quiet and even so as to not alarm Phichit who was sleeping in the bed next to his. There was an empty feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger. He curled around it on the bed, trying to chase the images of Yuri Plisetsky, Mila and Georgi at the rink, all looking at him, from his mind. They should have watched Viktor train today, not him. His death was a fault in the fabric of the universe, and Yuuri would have given anything to fix it. He could not explain why this person he had never spoken to had meant so much to him in the past, and why his death still seemed to haunt him nine years later. Viktor was missed by thousands of people, and Yuuri knew that he was not the one who missed him the most. That must be his family, his friends, perhaps Yuri Plisetsky who had loved him like a brother.

But secretly, selfishly, Yuuri wanted Viktor to be alive so that he could be inspired by him again.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I realise this is not a happy fic, but I've got it more or less planned out, and Yuuri won't feel as horrible the entire time.  
> In case someone is curious, the song I was thinking of for Viktor's program that Yuuri skates in St. Petersburg is "Gavi's Song" by Lindsey Stirling. It's a bit of an anachronism because the song only came out last year, but that's what I was listening to while writing.  
> Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!


	2. I died for beauty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Emily Dickinson's poem of the same name.

 

 

Yuuri was back at the rink in St. Petersburg. It looked very similar to how it had earlier that day, and for a moment Yuuri thought he had simply returned to skate some more. It was dark outside the large windows, and the rink was scarcely lit. Everything was slightly blurry, and Yuuri attributed it to the fact that he was not wearing his glasses.

Then he saw the figure gliding across the ice. He couldn’t see his face in the unfocused darkness, but Yuuri would have recognised the step sequence, the way the young man’s body moved, anywhere. It was Viktor, skating the routine Yuuri had performed for the Russian skaters earlier.

Yuuri tried to speak but no sound left his mouth. He moved closer to the ice, eyes set on Viktor as he spun in and out of darkness. Faintly, he could hear the music that accompanied the program, and he knew it was coming from inside his own head. Viktor’s silver hair was short, and it took Yuuri a moment to get used to seeing it like this. The expression on Viktor’s face was one of intense concentration, and Yuuri worried that he might distract him if he noticed him. But Viktor didn’t. He just kept skating, until the music ended and he assumed the final pose.

 

Yuuri’s eyes fluttered open.

Pale sunlight fell across the hotel room. Phichit was still asleep on the other bed. Yuuri realised his heart was racing, and there were tears in the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away, not sure why they were there. He felt a dull ache in his chest, and for a moment it was so painful that he couldn’t breathe. He remembered dreaming about Viktor, seeing him skate. It had been a beautiful dream, but it had been sad, too.

He sat up, shaking off the duvet and rubbing his eyes. The previous day had obviously been carried over into his dreams. Still, the intensity of the feeling that had overcome him in the first moments after waking up was something he had not anticipated. Perhaps the pressure of deciding about his future was causing him more stress than he had thought. He needed a break, away from it all, where he could collect his thoughts and make the right choice.

 

They spent another day in St. Petersburg, sightseeing and exploring the city, and Yuuri felt as relaxed as he possibly could, given the unclear state of his future. Georgi had offered to drive them to the airport in his car, and they had accepted gratefully.

“I hope to see you both compete next season,” he said when they said goodbye in the airport parking lot. Yuuri didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded, and let Georgi give him a quick hug.

Back in Detroit, Celestino wanted to know if the trip to Russia had helped Yuuri to make a decision. Yuuri had to admit that he was not sure, the uncertainty feeling like something large and undigested that sat uncomfortably in his stomach. The next week made it clear to everyone at the rink just how stressed Yuuri was. He had difficulties with jumps he had been landing consistently, even in competitions, and every night after training he felt a new exhaustion in his bones, despite not accomplishing anything during practice. Celestino watched him suffer for a few days before ordering Yuuri to take another break and visit his family.

“Take a few weeks and make up your mind. Relax a bit, Yuuri. You can’t force yourself to train for the next season if you’re not sure that you’ll be competing. Go and see your family.”

Yuuri agreed, his head hanging and his spirits low. He had hoped to visit his family when he was feeling better about himself. He had not seen them for five years, and when he had left it had been with the aim of building his professional skating career. Now he was returning to them, hoping that they would still love him despite his failure. His mother sounded genuinely happy when he called to tell her that he was coming home, and he booked a flight, feeling that he was finally doing something right.

Images of Viktor skating were now twisted though his nightly dreams, like some plant that had taken root inside his mind. Yuuri knew that this was likely happening due to stress. Viktor symbolised his love for skating, and the memories from visiting his home rink in St. Petersburg were still fresh. He never had the same strong emotional response to the dreams that he had had in Russia, so he didn’t pay the dreams too much attention.

Phichit and Celestino both took the time to accompany him to the airport when it was time to leave. He knew that they were both concerned. They had seen him struggle during the last season, and it had gotten worse since his return from Russia. Phichit had blamed himself, saying that visiting St. Petersburg had been a bad idea after all, but Yuuri knew that that was not the cause of his problems. What he needed was time to really think, and travelling, first to Russia and now to Japan, was something that would hopefully help him to do just that.

“Let me know when you have made your choice,” Celestino said with a serious expression on his face, and briefly hugged Yuuri in a professional manner. “Don’t take too long.”

“See you in a few weeks,” Phichit said, pulling Yuuri into a much longer hug.

 

His family welcomed Yuuri back with open arms, as if he had never disappointed them, as if the reason for his return was something else entirely. His parents cooked all his favourite meals for him, and Yuuri knew he would have to very carefully watch his weight while he was staying with them.

On his first night back he went to pay his respects to Vicchan. He sat in front of the framed picture of the poodle for a long time, until his sister found him.

“So you’ve finally come home,” Mari said in her usual nonchalant way, an unlit cigarette between her lips. “How long are you staying?”

“I’m not sure,” Yuuri said truthfully.

“You’re here to make up your mind about your future, right?” Mari was leaning against the doorway, and from where he was sitting Yuuri could see that she was tired after a long day of work at the onsen. He nodded.

“You have a degree. You could do something with it,” she said. After a brief pause she added, “or, you know, keep skating. You know I’ll support you either way.”

“I guess I just need more time to think about it.”

Mari moved as if to leave, then seemed to think better of it and instead sat down next to her brother. “What’s making it so hard?” she asked.

Yuuri sighed. _Everything_ , he wanted to say but he knew that was not a proper answer. “So much depends on my decision. I don’t want to regret it later.”

“I get that. What makes you think you should retire?”

“My career is not going where it should be. I can’t win. And I’m tired.” He looked around the room, searching for the right words. “It’s more than that. Lately, I feel like there’s just something… missing. I’m uninspired, I lack motivation, I –“ he hesitated. Did he dare tell her about the creeping worry that had held his heart in an iron grip ever since he had heard Viktor’s name in Sochi? Mari looked at him, took the still unlit cigarette from between her teeth and placed it behind her ear. He remembered her helping him with homework, taking him to ballet class, his small hand in hers. He could barely admit it to himself but he knew he had to say it, bring himself to form the words with his mouth, so he could deal with them.

“I wonder if I only kept skating because I didn’t want to accept that Viktor had died.”

He couldn’t look at her and stared at an empty spot of air over her shoulder instead.

“Oh, Yuuchan. That’s not true.” Mari’s voice was soft and Yuuri suddenly had to fight back tears. “You loved skating before you first saw him skate. Or if not skating then dancing – same thing. You’ve been dancing around this place basically since you could walk and it had nothing to do with Viktor Nikiforov. I understand you looked up to him–“ Yuuri made a small, involuntary choking noise at the understatement.

“Idolised him, then. Adored him,” Mari said. “I know he was everything you ever wanted to be, you wanted to meet him, compete at all the same events as him. But he’s not why you skate in the first place. He’s not the reason you started and he’s not the reason you continued, alright? You skate because you love it, not because you love some Russian boy who died before you could make him notice you.”

She slung an arm around him and he let his head drop to her shoulder. It was easy to forget how well his family knew him. He had spent so much time away from them that he had not believed they would understand his situation. Mari had picked up on his feelings effortlessly and reminded him of truths he had almost forgotten.

“What do you think I should do?” he asked.

Mari was quiet for a while. “I don’t know. Do what makes you happy. If you don’t want to face the whole circus of competitions anymore that’s alright. But don’t run away because you think you’re not good enough to win. You are! You’ve won in the past, you can win again. If there’s something missing as you say, go find it.”

“Since when are you so wise?” he asked, wiping his eyes and lifting his head to look at her from the side. She laughed, and Yuuri grinned at the sound.

“I’m older than you and I have time to think about things while I work.” She smiled, then added: “Unlike some others who get so busy they end up not coming home for five years.” Mari laughed again, and Yuuri knew she was trying to wind him up on purpose to distract him from his worries, but he couldn’t deny the truth in her words.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have visited sooner.”

Mari shrugged. “You’re here now.”

 

Yuuri enjoyed spending time with his family after such a long time apart. He slipped into an easy routine, going on runs along the beach, helping out at the onsen where he could, and skating at Ice Castle. Yuuko and Takeshi had welcomed him back as warmly as his family, and they let him use the rink whenever he wanted. Being back in Hasetsu finally made it possible for Yuuri to clear his head and think. He still had not made a decision but he felt like he was at least getting closer. He found himself smiling more often, and not just polite smiles, but genuine ones. The decision still weighed on him and he was not completely happy, but he finally felt like he could breathe.

Most nights when he went to bed he fell asleep faster than he was used to, and he didn’t miss the sleepless hours of tossing and turning one bit. He still dreamed of Viktor every night, and he could always remember the dreams when he woke up. It was only one dream, actually. Viktor skating in St. Petersburg, his hair short, his performance beautiful. By now Yuuri knew the dream by heart. The low lights were familiar, the music was loud and clear, he knew the exact colour of the clothes Viktor was wearing, knew the expressions that flitted across his face as he focused on the next jump. Yuuri was used to it now; the dream was the same every night.

Until one night it wasn’t. Yuuri had watched Viktor glide across the ice as always, quietly marvelling at the precision of his movements. He knew that the dream would end once Viktor completed the routine, and he anticipated it, feeling neither sad nor glad about it. It was just how it was. But this time, when the routine ended, Yuuri did not wake up. The dream continued, and in it, he felt his eyes widen as he realised it. Viktor looked up from where he was standing on the ice in his final pose, slowly raising his head and looking directly at Yuuri as if he had known him to be there all along. Yuuri gasped. His heartbeat quickened. Viktor’s voice carried easily across the ice. “You’re a good skater, Yuuri.”

Yuuri breathed in sharply. It was only a dream. Viktor was not really talking to him, it was all in his head, a fantasy his sleeping mind had come up with. Viktor skated over to where Yuuri was standing motionless, placing his hands next to his on the balustrade, looking him directly in the eye, and it felt more real than any dream Yuuri had ever had.

“You have so much potential.” Viktor’s voice sounded like it had in interviews, his accent colouring the words.

Yuuri cleared his throat. “I do?”

“You do. You could win the Grand Prix.” Yuuri could not respond. He was too distracted by Viktor talking to him, even if it was just in a dream. His mind was constructing a beautiful fantasy and he would remember it when he woke up.

“I mean it,” Viktor said. “You could win and I want you to. I want to see you win gold at the Grand Prix Final next season.” Yuuri smiled and just kept looking at him. This dream was obviously fuelled by the part of him that wanted to keep skating, and it made his idol say impossible things to him.

Viktor raised an eyebrow as if to ask why Yuuri was being so passive. “I want to see you win,” he repeated, and Yuuri smiled. “Don’t throw away your career just yet.” Viktor pushed off against the barrier, gliding backwards towards the middle of the rink, and Yuuri woke up, certain that this dream would cause him some pain in the future, but content with it for now.

 

He was distracted all day, wondering what would happen that night, if Viktor would talk to him again. Yuuri did his best to push the thought to the side. The dreams were not real and losing himself in them was not a good idea. When Phichit called him that evening to check in with him and ask if he had made a decision yet, Yuuri knew he had to tell him about the dreams.

“I haven’t decided yet,” he said. Phichit hid his disappointment well. He shrugged, slightly pixelated through the webcam.

“You’ll need to come back soon if you want to train for next season,” Phichit said. “Celestino is giving all his attention to me while you’re gone. Who knows, maybe I’ll beat you.” He grinned a cheeky grin that made Yuuri smile too.

“You probably will – would, I mean. I don’t know.” Phichit’s eyes had lit up at the slip.

“See?” he said, “you really do want to come back. Come on, Yuuri! I respect your decision and all that, but come on! You can’t tell me you don’t still love skating!”

“I do. I just don’t know if I can do it all again.” There was silence for a few moments. Phichit shifted in front of his webcam.

“I really thought going to St. Petersburg would make you want to compete again,” he said quietly. “I hope I didn’t make it harder for you by making you go to Russia.”

“No, of course not!” Yuuri hurried to say. “It meant a lot to me. I would have never gone if you hadn’t suggested it.”

“But it didn’t convince you.”

Yuuri shook his head. “It did something, though. Skating his program at his home rink was… special.”

“It certainly looked special,” Phichit said. “I’ve never seen you skate like that before. That’s what I thought going there would help you to find, or maybe find again. It was so obvious you liked skating that routine, it was beautiful, Yuuri. You could skate like that in competitions.”

“I’m not sure I could.”

“ _I’m_ sure. I’ll be sure for you, as long as you can’t be sure yourself. Maybe you just need to hold on to whatever it was that made it possible for you in St. Petersburg, whatever it was.”

Phichit looked at Yuuri thoughtfully and Yuuri could sense that he was about to ask what it had been that had inspired him in Russia. He wasn’t sure if he could put the feelings that had flooded him on the ice into words, or if he even wanted to.

“Phichit,” he said before his friend could ask. “I need to tell you something.”

Phichit’s mood changed from pensive to curious immediately. “What is it?”

“Ever since… ever since we were in Russia I dream about Viktor. Every night.” The words sounded stupid in Yuuri’s ears but he couldn’t take them back now.

The grin had returned to Phichit’s face. “Like, dirty dreams?”

“No!” Yuuri could feel himself blush. “Nothing like that! Just him skating. The same routine, the same dream, every night. I think it’s just stress, I just needed to tell someone.”

“Yeah, that would make sense. I’m no dream expert but you really are stressed, so I guess you’re right. At least they’re not nightmares, right?”

“Right. But last night the dream changed. Normally I wake up after the program ends, but last night Viktor came up to me and told me he wanted to see me win and that I shouldn’t throw away my career.”

“I like that dream Viktor.” Another smile flashed across Phichit’s face. “You know dreams are in all probability linked to the unconscious, right? Maybe dream Viktor is your unconscious telling you that you want to keep competing.”

“That’s certainly the easiest explanation,” Yuuri said. “And the one that fits best with what you want me to want.”

Phichit cocked his head, grin broad and infectious. “I don’t deny it! I want you to come back to Detroit to train for next season. So don’t leave me hanging too long! Make up your mind and get on a plane already!”

Yuuri had to laugh. Phichit was always so open and honest about what he wanted.

“Anyway, I’ve got to go. It’s early here, I’m supposed to get to the rink. Tell me as soon as you’ve decided. And tell me if you’re having any more weird dreams!”

 

That night, the dream was what Yuuri had grown used to, and the next day Celestino called to give him an ultimatum. Yuuri tried not to think of it like that, but truthfully, that was exactly what it was.

“I need you to decide, Yuuri,” Celestino said, his voice clear in Yuuri’s ear through his phone’s speaker. “I hate putting this much pressure on you, but you have put this off for too long. If you want to be competitive next season, you have to return to Detroit soon. Very soon! Yuuri, I want you to call me tomorrow evening, your time, and tell me whether or not I can expect you back in Detroit by the end of the month.”

Yuuri agreed and promised to call Celestino the next evening, heart beating in his throat. The sudden deadline put an end to his time of uncertainty, and a part of him wanted to thank Celestino for forcing him to make a decision. An equally large part of him was panicking, certain that another day would not be enough to make the right choice. And a last part, one that he pushed back against violently, wanted to run and never think about any of it again. That, however, was not a solution and he didn’t want to be someone who ignored his problems rather than facing them. So he would decide, tell his family, and then call Celestino.

Until the end of the day, Yuuri went back and forth between the options. When he went to bed without having come to a conclusion his only comfort was that he still had another day. Perhaps tomorrow he would be more certain, more inspired, more confident. He closed his eyes and slowly drifted into sleep.

 

The dream started as it always did, Viktor gliding across the ice in perfect concentration. Yuuri watched, his eyes glued to Viktor’s face. His expression was shifting between relaxed and focused, brows knit and lips pressed together. Distantly, Yuuri wondered if the dream would change, or disappear completely, once he had made his decision. Since the dream was a part of his unconscious mind and served a purpose, perhaps to remind him of his love for skating, it was probable that this was the last night he was going to have it. Perhaps Viktor would talk to him again, after he finished his routine. Whether he would speak or not, Yuuri knew he would miss the dream if it stopped after this night.

Yuuri forced his thoughts to the back of his mind, determined to simply enjoy watching Viktor skate. Even without an elaborate costume, Viktor was beautiful. Possibly more beautiful than he had been while skating in competitions, in front of thousands. This was a more private moment, something for Viktor alone. It was a dream, and it was Yuuri’s dream, but he felt like what he was seeing belonged to Viktor, not Yuuri. The repetition of the dream, the same every night, had made it so familiar to Yuuri that he could have told if even the smallest detail had changed. In that respect it resembled a recorded performance, one that he might have seen online, there for him to watch over and over again. But that sameness, the exact same movements Viktor performed in Yuuri’s mind night after night, was the only similarity between the dream and something recorded by a camera. This felt more real, much more three-dimensional. Yuuri was _in_ it, a part of it almost. Other than the one time that Viktor had spoken to him, Yuuri had no way of influencing the dream. He was a spectator, and yet it was as if he was not there at all. Viktor did not seem to notice him, or if he did he paid him no attention, and Yuuri didn’t mind.

He watched and waited, curious to see what would happen after Viktor finished skating, because the longer his eyes followed him, the more convinced he became that the dream would carry on. This night was significant, and it would be reflected in the dream. The last notes of the music sounded through the air, and Viktor came to a halt on the ice.

And Yuuri was right. The dream continued. Yuuri felt his heart rate pick up and his palms were suddenly sweaty with anticipation. Viktor moved out of the final pose, and for a split second Yuuri though he would come over to him again. Viktor leisurely skated to one side of the rink, picking up a water bottle and drinking in long gulps, chest heaving after running through his entire free skate program. He sat the bottle down, checked his phone, then resumed his position in the centre of the ice.

It was much more quiet now that the music had stopped. Viktor didn’t seem to be planning to go through the routine again. Yuuri assumed that he was going to focus on some element he was not completely satisfied with yet.

Then Yuuri heard a noise and turned in time to see a door open to his right, two men walking through it. Yuuri looked to Viktor, who looked to the men as they approached the rink. Viktor said something, and Yuuri couldn’t understand him. He assumed it must have been Russian. That made no sense. Yuuri had never had a dream in which he couldn’t understand what was being said. It felt wrong.

One of the men replied to what Viktor had said, his voice loud and harsh, and Viktor paled. Yuuri stared at him. Viktor shook his head and said something else, folding his arms and fractionally raising his chin. Yuuri could see the second, shorter man moving out of the corner of his eyes, and he turned automatically to see what was happening. With a jerky motion the man had pulled a gun and pointed it across the ice at Viktor.

A short command aimed at Viktor, a gesture with the gun. Viktor shook his head. The man cursed, the words unintelligible but clear in their meaning. He flicked the gun, and a crashing shot ripped through the quiet space of the rink. Viktor’s head snapped to where the bullet had torn through the balustrade to his left.

Another command, and Viktor’s shoulders sagged. He came towards the men slowly, defeated. He stopped when he was a couple of metres away from them. The shorter man impatiently gestured with the gun again. It was clear that the men wanted Viktor off the ice. Viktor said something that sounded like a question, his voice quiet but even. The first man gave a short response and Viktor nodded, starting to move towards them again. The man with the gun turned to his partner to say something to him, his voice sounding annoyed, dissatisfied. He waved his arm that was still pointed at Viktor, distracted, not looking.

Yuuri knew what would happen moments before it did. A second shot, this one fired accidentally.

Viktor’s hands clasped over his stomach before he lost balance and sank to his knees. The men took one look at him, turned, and walked away. Viktor sat on the ice, a steadily growing red stain spreading on his shirt, seeping through his fingers and dripping onto the ice.

Yuuri screamed. He realised that he had been screaming for a while, and that he was screaming in his bed in Hasetsu, not at a rink in St. Petersburg. He was sitting up on the bed before he could tell what he was doing. His clothes were sweat-soaked and clung to him. He reached for his small bin and emptied his stomach into it, his whole body shaking.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it!   
> Sorry about making Yuuri vomit in two chapters in a row :/
> 
> I loved reading the comments on the first chapter, and I'd love to read more!


	3. Drowning is not so pitiful as the attempt to rise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Emily Dickinson's "Drowning is not so pitiful"

 

 

Yuuri let the bin slide through his hands back onto the floor. He wiped his mouth with the hem of his shirt, then took several small careful sips from the water bottle he kept next to his bed. After he set the bottle aside he looked around the room restlessly, feeling like an animal in a too-small cage. Images from the dream flashed before his eyes. He needed to get out, use up the adrenaline that was coursing through his body. He couldn’t get out of his sweat-soaked clothes and into a fresh shirt and workout trousers fast enough. His hands were still shaking, making tying his shoelaces difficult.

It was very early in the morning and when he stepped outside, rushing out of the house as fast as he could without disturbing anyone, the town was basked in milky twilight. Yuuri set into a fast-paced run, glad for the semi-darkness that surrounded him. This early, almost no one was outside and the few people he encountered couldn’t see his face properly in this light. Yuuri wasn’t sure what they would have seen in his expression. He couldn’t think, couldn’t reason with himself, explain what he had seen.

When he reached Ice Castle Hasetsu, his breaths came fast and hard, but Yuuri ignored it. He let himself in, using the key Yuuko had given him only days earlier, and marched through the dark hallways until he got to the rink. Switching on the main light, he saw the ice stretch out before him, cold, untouched, and inviting. This was the only place he could be in this moment. He felt as if he might cease to exist if he forced himself to be anywhere else. The dream had shaken him to the core, and now he had to piece his sense of reality back together. Nothing but skating could do that for him.

Yuuri hooked up his phone and let himself drown in loud music while warming up. He was not paying proper attention to all of his muscles but he didn’t care. He needed to skate, focus on his movements on the ice and work until the images in his mind stopped.

It was Viktor, again and again. Shot, bleeding, dying. His knees giving in, blood collecting under him on the ice. His hands on his stomach, instinctively but ineffectively covering the wound. Yuuri felt a sob rise through his body, and it escaped his mouth inaudibly, drowned out by the music. He pushed himself into another jump, and then another, the strain he felt in his muscles the only thing that grounded him in reality. This was what he knew, what he could always come back to when he needed to be alone, using his path around the rink as a physical way to process what was going on in his mind. For a while, he forced his thoughts away from what had woken him up, tried not to think anything at all. The harder he pushed his body the easier it was to concentrate on the positioning of his feet or how much momentum he would need to land a perfect triple toe loop. He ran through his programs of the past season, not caring about getting the emotions right. This was not a performance, this was fighting to keep his head over water as the dream had slung an arm around his legs, pulling him down.

Outside, the sun was rising, bringing with it pale morning light and the end of the night. Yuuri collapsed in a heap on the ice after missing the landing of a jump, and for a minute he couldn’t get back up. He had thoroughly exhausted himself. Yuuko and Takeshi would come to open the rink to the public soon, and Yuuri needed to leave before then. He stood up, drank the rest of the water he had brought, and skated in wide slow circles around the rink in an attempt to cool down more gently than he had warmed up.

His thoughts caught up with him quickly but he didn’t try to push them away again. He needed to make some sense of everything before he left the rink. Yuuri allowed the memories of the dream to wash over him, and they came crashing down on him like a wave in open water. The worst thing was Viktor’s face. His expression, shocked and scared, had burned itself onto Yuuri’s eyelids. It floated through the air in front of him, blue eyes wide open, mouth slack as if only in mild surprise.

Yuuri understood now. What he had seen in the dream, night after night, had always been leading up to Viktor’s death. It had been a mercy that in all the other nights he had been able to wake up before the end. He remembered how he had first heard of Viktor’s death and he remembered reading about it in newspapers and later online. It was a publically known fact that he had died from a gunshot to the abdomen. It had also been speculated that his death may have been some sort of accident, a different crime escalated or gone wrong. What Yuuri didn’t know was if what he had seen in the dream was what had actually happened. Of course it was impossible. His mind had taken all the information he had collected over the years and convoluted it all into a narrative that had been played out in a dream. It could not have been the truth. Perhaps something close to it, but not what had actually happened to Viktor Nikiforov nine years ago.

Yuuri could accept that logic. There was only one question, posed by a voice that didn’t just nag but scream in his mind: If it wasn’t real, then how could it _feel_ so real? He still remembered every single thing that had happened in the dream. He could have described it in minute detail, from the men’s faces to the exact spot on the ice where Viktor had fallen. Normal dreams did not behave like this. This was something serious, and Yuuri had no way of knowing what it meant. If it wasn’t real, which it could simply not be, it must imply that something was severely wrong with his psyche.

Yuuri showered at the rink and then dragged himself home before anyone noticed his presence at the Ice Castle. His mother was worried about him and insisted he have some lunch because he looked pale. She was busy with work but still took the time to watch him empty his plate as if she suspected he wouldn’t if she left him out of her sight.

“Are you not feeling well?” she asked, a concerned look on her face. “Maybe you should go back to bed for a bit?”

The thought made his stomach churn. Sleeping was the last thing he wanted to do. “I’m fine,” Yuuri said, his voice hoarse. “I’m going on a walk.”

He headed out soon after, wandering around town aimlessly. His steps led him to the beach, where he spent some time sitting in the sand after his feet refused to carry him any farther. Yuuri knew that he had pushed himself too much on the ice that morning and that he would suffer the consequences later, but he couldn’t care. Skating had helped with the panic a little. Yuuri was used to anxiety but this was something else. He had never doubted his grip on reality before. He knew that sometimes his mind would run off without his consent, making him worry too much about things other people might not waste a second thought on. It wasn’t comfortable but at least he had always known that he was not crazy. Now, after the dream, he wasn’t so sure anymore. The dream had felt completely real, ever since the first night he had dreamed it. Seeing Viktor be killed felt like more than just a dream. It was a memory, and not his own.

If he let himself believe that, then he was going mad. If he didn’t allow himself to believe what he felt to be true, then he still had to worry about repetitive, disturbing dreams. He tried to breathe slowly, taking in the salty smell of the ocean through his nose and exhaling through his mouth. Hasetsu was as peaceful as ever. Few people were at the beach and it was mostly quiet save for the gentle sounds of small waves hitting the beach. A handful of seagulls circled overhead in search of food. Yuuri watched them, the ease with which they spread their white wings to fly somewhere else when their current location no longer held their interest. The peaceful backdrop did not fit with the tumultuous thoughts that chased through Yuuri’s mind. He felt out of place in his own home town. It was almost as if his presence, the images he carried around with him in his head, somehow spoiled the idyllic scene.

He pushed himself back to his feet and left without looking back. Going home, where he might succumb to the temptation of his bed and fall asleep, was not an option. The dream had cut his night’s rest short and he could already feel his body aching to catch up on the missing hours of sleep. But sleeping wasn’t safe anymore. Yuuri knew he would have to sleep eventually, but he would put it off for as long as he could. The possibility of seeing how the dream ended again was too horrible to risk until there was nothing he could do to keep his eyes open any longer.

For a moment, Yuuri thought about visiting Minako’s dance studio but decided against it. He was too exhausted to practice, and if he didn’t move he might doze off in some corner. Letting his feet carry him without paying much attention to where he was going, Yuuri found himself outside Minako’s second place of business in town, her bar. This early in the day it was still closed, but he could see his old dance teacher sweep the counter and re-arrange bottles, and he gingerly knocked on the door’s glass panel.

Minako let him in, pulling a bar chair out for him to sit on and pouring him a drink without asking if he wanted one. Yuuri eyed the clear liquid and shot her a questioning look.

“You look like you could need it,” she said with a shrug, and filled a second glass for herself. Yuuri downed his drink in one go. Minako was right; if he had ever needed a drink it was now.

“Looks like I was right,” Minako said and re-filled Yuuri’s glass.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a smaller sip this time.

“So, what’s got you drinking at –” she peered over to the clock at one end of the bar, “two in the afternoon?”

Yuuri sighed. How could he explain that he had been dreaming about his dead idol skating and then being accidentally killed? There were no words that could have expressed that the most horrifying thing he had ever seen had happened in a dream which he half believed to have really occurred years ago in a different country.

“It’s because you don’t know if you should retire, right?”

Yuuri looked up. Minako was watching him over the rim of her glass, a knowing look in her eyes.

“Yeah,” Yuuri said, deciding to go with the easiest explanation. “That’s it. I just don’t know how to make that decision.”

In truth, he had barely thought about retiring all day. The dream had shoved his other worries aside.

“I understand,” Minako said and she looked like she really did understand. Yuuri remembered that she had been a successful dancer before she began teaching others. He cleared his throat.

“How old were you when you stopped dancing?”

Minako chuckled. “I’ve never stopped dancing,” she said. “Retiring doesn’t mean you stop to dance or skate, it just changes the context you dance in. I was quite a bit older than you when I retired from ballet but comparing yourself to others won’t help you with your decision. If it’s time for you to retire now it doesn’t matter how old you are or what somebody else would do.”

Yuuri wanted to ask if she thought he should retire but he knew she wouldn’t tell him even if she did have a clear opinion on the matter. Everyone seemed determined to let him make the decision on his own and he knew he should appreciate it. Suddenly he felt guilty again. His family and friends supported him and allowed him to find his own way, while he stumbled around in the dark unable to figure out what he wanted. He let Minako pour him a third drink.

They sat in silence, occasionally sipping from their glasses. It was not an uncomfortable silence and Yuuri could feel Minako’s eyes on him as she watched him think.

What did he want? His wishes and ambitions had once been so clear to him but now they lay hidden under layers and layers of confusing feelings, arguments, and nightmares. When he had begun to think of skating as more than a hobby he had soon realised exactly what he wanted: to be good enough to skate on the same ice as Viktor Nikiforov. That dream had changed over time and merged into something else. He had wanted to be a world class skater because he loved the sport more than he could say. For a while, training had anchored him when he needed it, had kept him sane when he was feeling sad and lonely. He had needed to work on his programs and push his body as far as he could. It had made him happy and given him purpose. He had wanted to see what he could achieve, had worked harder than ever in the last season, determined to finally reach the Grand Prix Final. And he had done it. He had won a place in the Final and his ambition had taken over. Winning a medal had become his goal because once he had reached the Final just being there had no longer been enough.

Coming in last in the Final had been a humiliating reminder that ambition and disciplined training were not enough. Only now, weeks later and more than a little tipsy too early in the afternoon, Yuuri realised that he had stopped to skate because he loved it and instead focused his energy on winning because he thought he had to. Skating had become his duty, more than it had been before, and Yuuri had lost sight of why he did it in the first place. Competitions had always been stressful and Yuuri had always suffered from nerves, especially before important events. In the past, he had been able to bounce back from the stress, from missing the podium, from having to speak to reporters. But the last season had drained him and left him devoid of the strength to carry on. The dreams of Viktor had started, and he hadn’t been able to understand them. Phichit was right, the Viktor in his dream was there to remind him how much he used to love skating before he allowed it to become an obligation that felt more like a chore than a privilege.

“Thank you, Minako,” Yuuri said. He emptied his glass and stood. “I need to think.” He left the bar and walked back to the beach. The alcohol made him feel calmer than he had since he had woken up from the dream. Sitting down on the sand he let his gaze wander over the ocean and the sky. He still felt awful, a mix of guilt, dread and a tiredness that had nothing to do with sleep or physical exhaustion. His career, his future and his past, and the strange dreams were all entangled in his mind so that he couldn’t think about them separately. It had all been too much for him and he hadn’t been able to see through the mess he had made of his own head.

Now he could finally see. The reason he felt so horrible, and possibly the reason why some part of his mind had come up with a fantasy that forced him to see his idol die, was that he was about to give up on his dream. It was as simple as that. He had lost sight of his love for skating, and that was why the last season had cost him so much. When he had first started to skate it hadn’t been about winning and he had been happy, then. Of course skating professionally had made winning more important, but the underlying reason for why he skated had always been that he loved it. He had forgotten about that and now that he remembered he wasn’t sure if it was enough to make him go back.

And Viktor. He was the other half of the problem. Viktor would never have given up, no matter what. He had died when he was eighteen years old and had never had the chance to build his career throughout his adult life. Yuuri had been given that chance and he was about to toss it aside, and why? Because he was scared that he might fail again. Competing in the next season meant risking humiliation again but at least he had the choice. Viktor never had a choice. Viktor should be out there, competing, winning, possibly failing sometimes. The world would never know what Viktor Nikiforov would have done had he lived. Yuuri was sure that Viktor would have fought for his dreams if only he’d had the chance.

It was clear to him now that there was only one acceptable choice and that some small part of him had known so from the beginning. He could not allow himself to retire yet.

Relief flooded through Yuuri. There was no more need to worry about this. He unlocked his phone and selected Phichit’s number. He needed to tell someone before he could think about it too much.

“Yuuri?” Phichit’s voice was croaky. “It’s the middle of the night. If this isn’t good news…”

Yuuri felt guilt stab at his insides. The alcohol and his relief about finally coming to a conclusion had made him forget about the time difference between Japan and the United States, and he hurried to apologise. “I’m sorry! I didn’t think! I can call back later.”

“No, I’m awake now. Tell me.”

Yuuri swallowed. “I have decided to come back to Detroit. I’m not retiring.”

Phichit made a rather high-pitched noise of approval and Yuuri could almost see him punch the air in triumph. “Yuuri! That’s brilliant! I’m so happy! When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know, I’ve only just decided. I’m really sorry for calling you this early, I just needed to tell someone so I couldn’t change my mind again.”

“That’s okay, I don’t mind,” Phichit said, voice still loud and excited. “Celestino will be so happy, too! Maybe wait a few hours before you call him, but he’ll be happy. He’s been worrying about you.”

Yuuri couldn’t help but pull a face. He didn’t like the idea of causing Celestino any trouble.

“What made you decide to come back?” Phichit asked, unaware of Yuuri’s discomfort.

Yuuri thought for a moment but he felt that his reasoning would not make much sense to anyone but himself.

“Many reasons,” he said vaguely. “I can’t really explain it.”

Phichit was quiet for a moment. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” he said. Yuuri could hear in his tone that Phichit wanted to say something else. He thought of the dream again, and saw a vivid image of a bleeding Viktor flash through his mind. Yuuri closed his eyes, wishing the dream away. It wasn’t real and now that he had decided to return to skating it shouldn’t be relevant anymore. He tried his best to ignore the voice in the back of his head that vehemently insisted that it had felt too real to be of no importance.

“So, have you dreamed of Viktor again?” Phichit asked, apparently sensing what Yuuri was thinking about.

Yuuri sighed. “I have,” he admitted.

“Did he try to convince you to keep skating again?”

Yuuri thought of yelled Russian phrases, gunshots, blood, and the faces of the men when they left Viktor to die. “No,” he said. The dream was still so vivid in his mind, unlike anything he had experienced before. His nightmares sometimes stayed with him for a few hours after he woke up but never as clear as this. There were none of the jumbled images or the general sense of being removed from reality that he usually associated with dreams. He didn’t think there were any gaps in the narrative, there was nothing that could not have happened in reality, and he remembered everything as if it had actually happened to him.

Yuuri could feel his thoughts going down a rabbit-whole. “Phichit,” he said slowly. “If I tell you something can you promise you won’t think I’m weird or – or crazy?”

“Sure. Shoot.”

Yuuri flinched at the word and felt like slapping himself. He was being ridiculous.

“Well, last night when I had that dream again,” he started, unsure how to carry on. Phichit waited until Yuuri had composed himself. “Basically what happened is that the dream went on but Viktor didn’t talk to me. He just carried on with his training and then two men came in and they were talking in Russian and I couldn’t understand what they were saying, which is strange, right? I think they wanted to kidnap him, which is what the papers said after he died, so it makes sense I would think that. One of them was sort of waving a gun around and he accidentally fired and shot Viktor, and he died.” Yuuri stopped talking. His heart was racing in his chest.

“Okay,” Phichit said. “That doesn’t make me think you’re weird. You were stressed out. People dream scary stuff when they’re stressed.”

Yuuri took a deep breath. He had come this far, he might as well tell him the rest. “The weird part is how real it felt. Phichit, I – it doesn’t even feel like a dream, it feels real. Like it really happened.”

Phichit did not respond for a long time, and Yuuri felt panic rise in his chest. “I sound completely crazy! Maybe I am crazy. Phichit, what if I’m going crazy? I can’t skate and be crazy!”

“I don’t think you’re crazy.” Phichit’s voice was calm. “I think you’re stressed. Look, I understand it must have been bad to see that happening in your dream but I’m sure it was just the stress. But you’re coming back and you don’t have to worry about that decision anymore. You’ll be fine, I promise.”

“It just felt so real,” Yuuri mumbled, unable to hold it back.

“You don’t really think it was though, right?” now Phichit sounded worried.

“No. I don’t know. I know it can’t be.”

“Exactly. Even if it was possible, if somehow you could have visions of things that have really happened, why would you dream of _that_? Viktor died over nine years ago and you’ve never had dreams like this before so why would these dreams start now, you know? It might feel real but dreams often do, right?”

“Right,” Yuuri agreed, but something Phichit had said got caught in what appeared to be the crazy part of his mind. He finished the call and promised Phichit to tell him if he had any more strange dreams and to let him know when he had booked a flight to Detroit. Yuuri watched the phone’s screen turn dark, dimly reflecting his face. _Why would these dreams start now?_ Phichit had asked to help Yuuri realise that the dreams were only in his head. He had argued that even if, hypothetically, Yuuri was able to dream of real events, it would be illogical for him to dream of Viktor dying years after it had happened. Yuuri could appreciate the logic of the argument. The problem was that he could easily think of a reason for why the dreams would have come to him now and not sooner. He had started dreaming of Viktor after visiting his home rink in St. Petersburg – the very rink where he had been killed. He had performed Viktor’s routine there, and that night the dreams had started.

 _It’s a coincidence_ , he told himself. Or if not a coincidence, then the combination of stress, jetlag, and the mix of emotions he had felt at the rink had led him to dream of Viktor. It was his mind’s reaction to what he was experiencing, nothing more. And yet, Yuuri could not deny that he had felt more connected to Viktor than ever before when he had performed his program in Russia. Phichit seemed to assume that the dreams would stop, now that Yuuri had decided to return to Detroit. Yuuri wasn’t so sure. Whether he was slowly slipping into madness or not, he had a feeling that the dreams would stay with him for a while.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> This is an in-between sort of chapter - I promise there will be more... plot and stuff in the next one!  
> I'm actually looking for a beta-reader for this, so if anyone happens to be interested, you can send me a message on [my tumblr](https://glassballoonsflytoo.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I would also be really happy to read some comments! What did you think? I know Yuuri's thought process is a bit mixed up at the moment but did everything still make sense to you?


	4. Much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Emily Dickinson's "Much madness is divinest sense".
> 
> I have added a few (trigger) warnings for this chapter in the end notes, just in case.

 

 

Yuuri returned to Detroit a week after he called Phichit on the beach. His parents and Mari were visibly relieved when he told them of his decision, although they made sure to stress that they would have liked him to stay in Hasetsu for longer. Phichit picked him up at the airport, chatting with him excitedly on their way to the small flat they shared. Yuuri felt strange. The familiar streets reminded him that he had only spent a few short weeks away. And yet, it felt like something had changed while he was gone. Perhaps it was the jetlag, or the fact that he hadn’t been sure if he would come back at all, but he saw Detroit with new eyes. It reminded him of the first impression of the city he'd had five years ago when he had first moved to the States.

It was colder than it had been in Hasetsu, and Yuuri shivered slightly when they arrived at their building. It was just after noon but Yuuri had given up on suppressing his yawns. The small flat was warm and Phichit announced that he had been grocery shopping that morning so they had everything they would need for a nice dinner. Yuuri had worried that the small living room, with the even smaller kitchen unit tucked away in a corner, would no longer feel like home after visiting the family onsen where he had grown up. His worries proved to have been for nothing though, and he sighed contently when he dropped his backpack to the floor and let himself flop onto the old sofa.

“Do you want tea?” Phichit asked from the kitchen.

“Yeah. Green, please.”

Yuuri closed his eyes while Phichit filled the kettle. Returning to Detroit had been the right decision, he had no doubt about it. Looking back on the past few weeks it felt almost laughable how he had agonised over the decision. This was the life he knew, drinking tea in their living room with Phichit, knowing that he would go to the rink to train the next day. Yuuri could feel the stress and worry lift off of his shoulders. The next season would be difficult but he had decided to take on the challenge and at the moment he was too exhausted to worry about it. He felt like he had worried enough for a long time. In his first few weeks back in Detroit he would focus on getting back in shape. He had trained in Hasetsu but he knew that he had been less rigorous on his own than he would be allowed to be under Celestino’s watchful eye. Yuuri had no illusions, he knew that returning to the exercise regime he had kept up before his break would leave him sore for days. The prospect did not bother him in the least.

Phichit set down a steaming mug on the small coffee table and sat on the sofa next to Yuuri, legs pulled up, hands wrapped around his own mug.

“Thanks,” Yuuri said and reached for his tea.

“I’m really glad you’re back,” Phichit said. He was looking at him, his face open and honest as always.

“Me too.”

“Just imagine, if you’d left I would have had to look for a new roommate.” Phichit sighed dramatically. “I would have found someone eventually, but I would have hated them from the start because they wouldn’t have been you.” They both laughed at the idea.

“You could never hate anyone,” Yuuri said.

Phichit pulled a face. “I totally could. I can be mean!”

Yuuri snorted laughing. “I’ve seen you angry maybe three times since moving in with you.” Phichit shrugged at that, and after a pause Yuuri added: “Not that I don’t like my friends in Japan, but you’re my favourite, you know? My best friend, I mean.”

“Sap.” Phichit grinned. “Love you too.” Yuuri smiled into his tea.

"What are the dreams doing, by the way?" Phichit asked.

Yuuri sighed - and decided to lie. "I still dream of him skating all the time but I always wake up before the men come in."

"I really thought the dreams would stop after you made your decision," Phichit said. "Maybe in a few days? Let me know, okay?" Yuuri could see the worry on his friend's face.  
"I'm fine," he said. "They're just dreams."

Phichit looked as if he wanted to say something, but Yuuri cut him off. "Can we not talk about this now? Let's talk about skating! How are your new programs coming along?"

A wide, enthusiastic smile spread across Phichit's face, Yuuri's dreams temporarily forgotten. "You're gonna like them! Celestino is finally letting me skate to _The King and the Skater_! The short program choreo is almost finished and I've got heaps of ideas for the free skate."

"That sounds great!" Yuuri said. He knew how long Phichit had wanted to skate to music from his favourite film. "You'll have to show me tomorrow."

 

The first night back in his bedroom in Detroit brought the same dream Yuuri had grown used to. If he had thought that moving back to the States would change the new routine of watching Viktor practice his final program and hoping that he would wake up before he had to see what happened next, Yuuri had been wrong. He had witnessed Viktor's murder twice since the first time and both times it had been just as bad. Despite this, and regardless of what he had told Phichit, he was secretly glad that the dreams had not disappeared yet.

He was less relaxed while he was dreaming now, because there was always the possibility that he would not wake up after Viktor finished his program. But despite the constant fear of having to see Viktor's murder again, Yuuri liked the dream, and so far the dream stayed harmless more often than it turned violent.

While it was true that he was now far less stressed than he had been before making the decision to continue skating, Yuuri knew that the next season would be far from easy for him. The dream was a comfort, a nightly reminder of his determination to fight for what he loved. He had decided to give everything he had this season, and this time he would skate for himself. It sounded selfish, even in his own head but he felt that it was the thing to do at this point in his career. He had never been a self-indulgent skater, had always put his coaches' plans first, skated the way that others had told him to. While Yuuri appreciated the help and support he had received from his old coaches and, in recent years, Celestino, he had come to the realisation that something needed to change if he wanted to keep skating and enjoy it.

There was a small sting of guilt in his guts every time Yuuri thought about how selfish he planned to be, and was already being by enjoying the dreams. He knew that he should see the recurring dream as a burden, like Phichit did, or at least as something to worry about. The truth, however, was that seeing Viktor every night felt too good to regret. There was a connection between them that Yuuri could not have explained had he ever tried to. The dream was the same every night, unchanging and yet never boring. Although there was no interaction between him and Viktor, Yuuri felt as if something was slowly shifting in the dream, one night at a time.

 

When he arrived at the rink early the next morning with Phichit, Yuuri was greeted by Celestino, who seemed more relieved than anything else to have his student back in training. He introduced Yuuri to his new exercise routine, and Yuuri had been correct in assuming that it would leave him utterly exhausted. Phichit showed him the thumbs up and provided encouraging comments whenever Yuuri felt like collapsing on the ice.

After training, when Yuuri's thoughts began to wander toward food and lying down for the rest of the day, Celestino took him to the side.

"We need to have a quick chat about next season," he said, face serious, and Yuuri felt his insides twist in nervous anticipation. "You did well today, although it will take a couple of weeks to get you back to where you were at the end of last season."

Yuuri flinched, thinking of the mess he had been. Celestino seemed to notice. "Physically, I mean," he said. "Your stamina has always been good, and we need to make sure it stays that way. We should work on your strength as well, to make sure your muscles can take all the jumps, even in the second half of your programs. And speaking of programs," Yuuri had been nodding along with Celestino's assessment of his physical fitness but stopped now. Celestino's tone of voice suggested that what he was about to say would be of high importance. "I believe you should choose your own music this season," he said. "I know we tried that before and it didn't work out but I want to try again. I know how unhappy you were at the end of last season and I understand it must have been difficult for you to decide to come back. I'm proud of you for that, Yuuri." Yuuri swallowed, touched by the unexpected praise.

"You're a good student, you follow my lead as your coach, and so far that has worked well enough. But something went wrong last season and I don't want that happening again. So I want you to make more of your own decisions, starting with your music. I want to hear some ideas in a week and we'll work from there."

Yuuri nodded and thanked his coach, then hurried to the showers. Choosing his own music was a daunting task that Yuuri had failed at before but perhaps it was the right thing to do. If he wanted to skate for himself, then choosing the music he would skate to seemed like a logical step. It looked like Celestino had come to the same conclusion as Yuuri: something in their coach-student relationship needed to change. Celestino had never explicitly discouraged Yuuri from picking the music for his programs, but he had never asked for much input from Yuuri's side either. Giving Yuuri more freedom in his decisions must be Celestino trying to fix whatever had gone wrong before, and Yuuri appreciated the gesture. He knew that Celestino had been generous, allowing him to take time off to visit his family and find distance so that he could think about his career, and he continued to do his best to give Yuuri what he needed.

The first week back in Detroit left Yuuri sore and exhausted every day after training, but he liked having a routine again that he knew how to follow. There was order in his life, and it gave him stability. He was looking for music that he could use for his programs, and Celestino had praised him for his focus on the ice. The dream ended when Viktor finished skating every night, and Yuuri was beginning to hope that he might never have to see the men and their gun again.

It was an empty hope, and he felt like he should have known it, when one night, after a good day of training at the rink, Yuuri drifted into the dream again, and saw Viktor look up after finishing his program. Yuuri immediately knew that he was stuck with the dream until the end.

Panic spread through his body; he could feel the adrenaline prickling in his fingertips. For a moment he thought he might wake up from his body's physical reaction alone, and he begged his eyes to open, but the dream carried on mercilessly. Viktor picked up his water bottle to drink, then checked his phone as Yuuri knew he would. Yuuri was forced to watch as Viktor skated back to the centre of the rink, presumably planning to work on a specific move, when the door opened and the men entered.

The commands they barked at Viktor sounded familiar now, on the fourth repetition, although Yuuri could still not understand what was being said. The scene unfolded before his eyes and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He tried to move but it was as if he was rooted to the spot. He shouted despite his better knowledge, trying to make Viktor notice him. The first shot echoed through the rink. Viktor had gone pale and was moving towards the barrier, where the men were awaiting him impatiently. Yuuri knew what would happen, and he wanted to look away. The man with the gun gestured, a shot went off, and Viktor's hands instinctively covered his stomach where he had been hit. The men ran, and Viktor crumbled, and Yuuri woke up sobbing.

His heart was racing, he was sweating, and he was breathing too fast. His head felt strange, and a sudden pain in his chest made him gasp. It was dark in the room, and he couldn't see much, and suddenly the blanket he had been sleeping under felt like it was trying to suffocate him. He sat up straight on the bed but he still wasn't getting enough air.

"Yuuri?!"

Phichit was outside at the door.

"Yuuri? Are you alright?" Yuuri wiped at the wet streaks on his cheeks, too focused on breathing to be able to say anything.

"I'm coming in now," Phichit said, and opened the door. A broad strip of light fell into the room from the hall, just bright enough to let Yuuri see Phichit's worried face as he came towards the bed.

"Yuuri?" he asked again.

"Sorry," Yuuri managed, not entirely sure what he was apologising for. He took several deep breaths, ignoring the feeling that they were not providing him with sufficient oxygen.

"You were crying."

"Sorry," Yuuri said again. "Nightmare."

"Can I sit?" Phichit gestured to the edge of the bed and Yuuri nodded, tugging his legs closer to his body to make room. Phichit stared at him in the near-darkness, and Yuuri couldn't read the expression on his face.

"Was it the dream where Viktor dies?" Phichit asked. Yuuri didn't say anything, but he couldn't suppress the fresh tears that burned on his face.

"Come here." Phichit sat back further on the bed and pulled Yuuri into a hug, and Yuuri wrapped his arms around his friend's back. Phichit let him cry, stroking his hair and holding him tight until Yuuri had calmed down.

"Sorry." Yuuri sniffed and sat up straight, pulling out of the hug at last.

"Don't apologise."

"Did I wake you up?"

Phichit shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Yuuri, do you have this dream often?" Yuuri knew that Phichit meant the version of the dream that didn't end before it was truly over. He shook his head. "This was only the fourth time."

"Yuuri," Phichit said, his brow furrowed in worry. It hurt Yuuri to see Phichit, who was usually so cheerful, like this. "That's not normal. I thought it was just stress but you've had this dream, the nice version, every night for weeks. You've had the nightmare version four times, you woke up crying, you were shaking when I came in. That's not normal, Yuuri. I think you should talk to someone."

Yuuri felt himself tense. "Like a shrink?"

"Like a counsellor. Or a therapist, yeah. Maybe they can help you."

"I don't know. I have dreams, what would a therapist do about that?"

"That's for the therapist to figure out. It can't hurt to find out what one would say about your situation."

Yuuri was far from convinced but he was exhausted and not in the right set of mind to argue. "Can we talk about this later?" he said, keeping his voice neutral. Phichit sighed. "Alright. Do you think you can go back to sleep?"

Yuuri looked around the dark room, felt his too-fast heartbeat drumming in his chest. He was tired but the prospect of closing his eyes and seeing Viktor bleeding again made him shake his head.

"Do you want me to stay here for a while?" Phichit asked.

Yuuri was embarrassed to admit it, but the thought of Phichit keeping him company was comforting. He nodded, feeling like a child that could not be left alone after a harmless nightmare. Phichit didn't comment, just shifted closer to the wall before lying down facing Yuuri and patting the mattress next to him. Yuuri followed the gesture, and Phichit loosely slung an arm over Yuuri's waist. It took Yuuri several minutes before he could relax. Listening to Phichit's slow, even breathing helped, and after a while it became difficult to keep his eyes open. Yuuri was afraid that he might fall back into the dream so that he would have to see it all play out again. He tried not to think about it. Phichit had fallen asleep, a warm presence at Yuuri's back, a welcome anchor that tied him to reality and helped him chase the images from his mind.

 

For the rest of the week, Yuuri was nervous whenever he went to bed, and it took him longer than usual to fall asleep. The dreams stayed benign.

He presented several pieces of music to Celestino that he considered skating to but neither Yuuri nor Celestino were convinced that any of them were the right choice.

"Keep looking," his coach told him. "The sooner you find the right music the better, but we're not in too much of a rush."

Yuuri began to feel stuck, unable to find music or even a theme for the season. He went on long runs every day, trying to distract himself from the sense of foreboding that was following him wherever he went. It was only a matter of time before he would see Viktor die again, and he didn't know how to cope with it when it happened. He tried over-the-counter sleeping pills, which shortened the time he spent in bed lying awake and worrying, but also gave him headaches. After a week, he gave up on the pills.

When he woke up crying again, Phichit knocked on his door and held Yuuri until his tears dried and he was able to fall asleep again. Phichit looked tired the next day but didn't complain, and Yuuri made sure to cook one of Phichit's favourite dishes that evening. While he was busy in the kitchen, Phichit was sitting on the sofa with his feet on the coffee table, scrolling through his phone and occasionally informing Yuuri about the newest developments in the world of social media.

"You know what I just thought," he said while Yuuri was cutting vegetables. "I know who might be able to help you with the music for one of your programs."

"Oh?" Yuuri looked up from the cutting board. Phichit came over to the kitchen and leaned against the counter.

"Do you remember that music student who composed that piece you never used?"

Yuuri pulled a face. He remembered only too well. In his final year in college a fellow student had offered to write some music for him that he might skate to. Yuuri had liked the result but it had not felt completely right, and at the time he had preferred to take the safer route and instead skate to the music Celestino had picked for him.

"I'm not sure she would want to work with me again. She put all that time and effort into the piece and then I never used it."

Phichit shrugged. "It was just an idea. I'm sure she wouldn't mind taking another look at it if she's not too busy."

"I'll think about it," Yuuri said. When he had commissioned the song, he had asked for something that would represent his career. It had fit, in a way. His mediocrity on the ice had been mirrored in the gentle but ultimately nondescript piano that carried the piece. If he wanted to use it, the music would need re-working. It was possible that it could work - if the music student was willing to invest even more of her time into the song.

 

Yuuri followed Phichit's advice and sent the composer an email that night when he couldn't fall asleep. She replied the next day, much more enthusiastically than Yuuri had anticipated. She promised to take another look at the music and incorporate any new ideas Yuuri might have.

The first competitions of the season were still far away but Yuuri knew that these events had a tendency to creep up on unsuspecting skaters who thought they still had plenty of time left to prepare. A few months could quickly melt away into weeks, and then days, and the fact that he still had neither music nor a theme made him anxious.

The dreams of Viktor dying were becoming more frequent. Some nights Yuuri would cry loud enough in his sleep that Phichit woke up from the noise and came into his room without comment, snuggling up to Yuuri like a comforting human blanket. Other nights, Yuuri woke up shaking, covered in cold sweat, and feeling utterly alone. The first night this happened, Yuuri didn't know what to do and tried to fall back asleep on his own. Since he hadn't been crying, Phichit had not woken up, and Yuuri did not want to bother him with his problems more than he already did. He spent the remainder of the night tossing and turning in his bed, unable to close his eyes for longer than a few seconds at a time. The next day at the rink was catastrophic.

When he awoke from the dream, having just seen Viktor bleed onto the ice for the third time that week, Yuuri forced himself to turn off the guilt he felt, put on a fresh shirt, and knocked on Phichit's door. He let him in without asking what had happened, and made room for him on the bed.

The next morning, on their way to the rink, Yuuri felt his heart beginning to race again, and he was feeling dizzy. He tried to ignore it while they were on the bus. He forced himself to breath normally but couldn't follow anything Phichit was talking about. When they got off the bus he had to sit down on the sidewalk. He was shaking and gasping for air. Phichit was saying something to him, and sitting down next to him. Yuuri couldn't understand what was happening to him, and it scared him more than even seeing Viktor die. Phichit kept talking in a calm voice, telling Yuuri that everything was all right. He talked about the rink and what Celestino would likely focus on during training that day, what they might eat for dinner and what groceries they would need to buy for it. After a while, Yuuri was able to follow Phichit's monologue better, the mundane topics he mentioned a straw for Yuuri to grasp at.

It took several more minutes until Yuuri felt ready to stand up again. Phichit held out a hand and helped him up. Yuuri didn't know what to say. He couldn't explain what had just happened.

"Thank you - for talking," he said when Phichit slung an arm around his shoulders and continued their way towards the rink.

"I don't know what that was, but thanks for being there for me."

"Yuuri, I think that was a panic attack," Phichit said. "It's not like this hasn't happened before. Remember last year at the airport? I looked it up then and I'm pretty sure these are panic attacks."

Yuuri didn't respond, just kept walking. Neither of them spoke for several minutes.

When they were almost at the rink Phichit cleared his throat.

"Have you thought about the counsellor again?" he asked carefully. Yuuri looked down onto his shoes, unable to meet his gaze.

"Not that I mind keeping you company at night - I really don't - but it doesn't look like it's getting better," Phichit said. "I worry about you."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologise. Just find someone who can help you by doing something more efficient than cuddling you, alright?"

Yuuri turned Phichit's words over in his head all day. It was true that the violent version of the dream had become more frequent, it was costing him sleep and making him feel constantly on edge. He wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to focus on skating if something didn't change. Yuuri knew that his anxiety alone may have been reason enough to seek professional help but he had never seriously considered it. His struggles had always seemed small, insignificant, compared to what other people suffered. Bothering a therapist with his small worries and fears seemed stupid, even unfair to the people who really needed help.

The dreams hadn't bothered him in the beginning, when all they did was show him Viktor. Deep down he still loved the dream, despite the fear he felt every night when he saw Viktor finish his program. When he woke up in time, everything was fine for the night, and he usually felt good throughout the next day. Only recently had Yuuri begun to feel tired even on those good days. Falling asleep took him a long time every night, because of the fear in his gut, and in the nights that he woke up crying and shaking he lost even more sleep to calming himself after the nightmare. Phichit was right, the situation had gotten out of hand and he was at a loss as to how to help himself out of it.

The idea of telling a stranger about his dreams was far from pleasant. Yuuri knew that he would be judged for it, maybe blamed for his ongoing fixation on a long-dead figure skating icon. He reluctantly mentioned these concerns to Phichit, who did his best to assuage his worries.

"No one will judge you," he said, carefully placing one comforting hand on Yuuri's arm. "If it doesn't work you can quit. I can come with you to tell Celestino that you want to see a therapist." He must have sensed Yuuri tense up because he continued. "He might be able to help you find a therapist. You don't have to tell him if you don't want to, but it would probably be good if he knew that you're struggling a little, so he can react better when you're tired during training."

 

The first time Yuuri walked into the therapist's office he felt utterly defeated. He was tired and confused, and he was not convinced that a stranger would be able to help him. The therapist, a petite blond woman in her forties, introduced herself as Dr. Cooper, and shook his hand before offering him a seat. She asked him about himself, what he did for a living and what was troubling him. Yuuri was uncomfortable talking about himself so much, but Dr. Cooper listened without interrupting and showed an interest in his passion for figure skating. She told him that she had wanted to be a dancer, perhaps a ballerina, when she was younger, but had lacked the necessary discipline. Yuuri knew that she was only telling him to make him feel more at ease and give him a chance to see her as just a fellow human being, no one to be scared of. It still worked, and he found himself easing into the conversation more.

Talking about the dreams was difficult but he managed.

"Phichit thought it was just stress, and it made sense at first. But I was stressed because I wasn't sure if I should continue skating, and I've made that decision so it can't cause me any more stress. The dreams haven't stopped, though, and I don't understand why."

Dr. Cooper nodded. "It's still very likely that they're caused by stress. You have detected one primary source of stress yourself, but there might still be other factors that make you feel under pressure. Can you think of anything in particular?"

Yuuri almost laughed. "Sure. I have to worry about qualifying for competitions all the time. If I can't qualify for the Grand Prix, for example, that means fewer sponsors and less money. And... if I can't qualify, what does that say about my skating? I _need_ to be good, you know? And of course I have to think about training, and diet, and not getting ill. But all that is normal," he closed, slightly embarrassed.

Dr. Cooper nodded. "So a lot of professional pressure. And in your private life? Are there any conflicts with friends, family, a romantic partner?"

Yuuri shook his head. "No."

He waited for Dr. Cooper to continue asking questions but she remained silent, apparently hoping that he would elaborate. Yuuri thought for a moment, desperate to fill the silence.

"I mean, my dog died. But that was a while ago. And I hadn't seen him in years. He was living with my family in Japan."

"Still, I assume that must have been hard for you. When was this?"

"In December," Yuuri said quietly. He didn't want to think about Vicchan dying, and his failure in Sochi that had followed.

"What was your dog's name?" Dr. Cooper asked. She seemed determined to have him talk about it.

"Vicchan. I named him after Viktor Nikiforov."

There was a knowing look on Dr. Cooper's face as she nodded.

"So, Yuuri, from an outsider's perspective, here's what things look like: You've been following figure skating from a young age, especially Viktor Nikiforov. His career, and then his death, greatly influenced your decision making in your teenage years. You had a dog that you named after your idol, and that dog died last December, which may have contributed to what you have been calling your 'failure' in Sochi. Depending on when you decide to retire you might now be in the later days of your figure skating career. Given that you've thought of retiring already, I'm sure you have been wondering what life holds for you after competitive skating. Can you see how all of these things may be connected?"

Yuuri nodded. He was not entirely sure what Dr. Cooper was aiming at but he could follow her argument that the events of the past year were connected in his mind.

"One of these factors alone would be reason enough to feel anxious. You have so many things to worry about that maybe you don't always find the time to process everything that happens around you. When your dog died, what did you do?"

"I... cried?"

"Yes, that's an appropriate response, but only an immediate one. What about the days and weeks after it happened?"

Yuuri furrowed his brow, thinking about the question. "I don't know, I guess I was sad. I mean, I know I was sad. After the Grand Prix Final I returned to Detroit and to training but I wasn't feeling well and Phichit suggested going to St. Petersburg." He stopped, certain that this was not what Dr. Cooper had meant when she asked what he had done after Vicchan died. She waited, and when he didn't continue despite her encouraging nodding, she said: "St. Petersburg is where Viktor Nikiforov was from, correct? What did you do while you were there? You said the dreams started in St. Petersburg. Can you think of any reason why that might be?"

"We visited Viktor's home rink. We talked to some of the skaters there. One of them, Mila, asked me to skate Viktor's program - the last free program he skated in competition before he - before he died. I didn't want to at first, but the others didn't seem to mind, so I did. Later, Phichit and I went to dinner with Mila and Georgi," Yuuri said, purposefully omitting the bittersweet wave of emotions that had hit him when he had skated Viktor's program. "We spent another day in St. Petersburg and then flew back to Detroit."

"And the first time you had the dream was the night after you skated the program?"

"Yes."

"What I'm trying to say," Dr. Cooper said with a small smile, "is that it doesn't sound too surprising that you would dream of Viktor the night after you visited the rink he used to train at. I suspect that all your worries, combined with the only partly processed grief for your dog, led to these dreams. In your sleep, your mind seems to have taken the pressure on your mental health caused by all of these factors, and condensed them into the image of your former idol. You might want to look at him as a symbol of your stress."

Yuuri thought about it for a moment. It made sense, to a point.

"You don't agree?" she asked, having seen the expression of doubt on his face. Yuuri cleared his throat.

"When I dream it doesn't feel stressful. At least it didn't until I realised what happens at the end of the dream."

Dr. Cooper nodded in understanding. "Our minds come up with strange solutions for our problems sometimes. They don't always make sense to us. Whether you see the dream as a manifestation of stress or not, the fact remains that the dream is not a good solution to your problem. The actual problem is that you're under a lot of pressure. The dream is not helping with that - quite the opposite actually. So what I would suggest is that we try to manage the pressure. Since the dreams are a result of the stress, they should get better that way."

Yuuri agreed with that plan, and Dr. Cooper explained that she would need to ask him several more questions in order to be able to make a diagnosis. She had him tell her about his anxieties and the moments when he felt as if he couldn't breathe properly. Dr. Cooper confirmed Phichit's suspicion that Yuuri had been having panic attacks, and he left her office with a preliminary diagnosis of panic disorder.

They agreed on a second appointment for the following week, and Dr. Cooper asked him to write down which version of the dream he experienced each night, if he had any more panic attacks, and if anything else happened that he thought might be noteworthy. When Yuuri returned to the apartment after this first meeting, his head was full of echoes of the questions Dr. Cooper had asked him. He had never talked about himself that much in such a short period of time, and he was glad that a full week would pass before his next session.

Phichit looked up from his phone when Yuuri came into the kitchen. There was a comforting smell of dinner coming from the oven.

"Food should be ready in less than ten minutes," Phichit said. He didn't ask about Yuuri's appointment, even though Yuuri was sure that he wanted to. Yuuri sighed and dropped into the second chair at their tiny kitchen table.

"Apparently I have a panic disorder." Yuuri closed his eyes, feeling more relaxed now that he was home and dinner was almost ready. He was tired.

"Are you going back?" Phichit asked. Yuuri nodded without opening his eyes.

"Good, I'm glad." Phichit briefly squeezed his hand and didn't bring up the topic again while they ate.

 

The next two meetings with Dr. Cooper involved more questions, more talking about himself, more hypotheses about his dreams. Yuuri shared the notes he took during the week, and they agreed on a therapy plan. Dr. Cooper had warned him that it might take some time until he started to feel better, and Yuuri understood that. Still, the nights when he dreamed of Viktor dying seemed to become less frequent. It might have been a coincidence, or perhaps the knowledge that he was working on his problems helped enough to keep the dreams at bay. Whatever it was, Yuuri felt like he was slowly beginning to get better.

He was still scared every night, and he spent countless hours trying to persuade his tired mind to fall asleep despite the chance that he might wake up screaming. The dream was still very much a part of his daily routine. Viktor spun and danced through his thoughts every night, and often continued to do so during the day.

Dr. Cooper discussed the possibility of medication for his anxiety with him and explained the possible side effects he might have to deal with. After hearing the list, which included drowsiness, dizziness, and lack of coordination, Yuuri knew that this was not an option for him. He would not be able to train if he was feeling dizzy or couldn't move his body the way he needed to when executing jumps. Declining medication also meant not having to worry about which specific drugs were approved by the ISU.

Now that Yuuri was feeling slightly better, he sometimes stayed at the rink late after training. Celestino had warned him not to overstrain his muscles and Yuuri made sure not to work too hard when he trained alone. His constant fear of seeing Viktor die again in his dreams had shifted his sleep pattern so that he felt most awake in the afternoon and in the evening. He fell asleep faster when he stayed at the rink until late, and he tried to spend as many evenings on the ice as he could.

One evening Yuuri went through the music on his phone, trying to decide on a piece for his short program. The music student who was working on the song for the free program had promised to show him the new version at the end of the week, and Yuuri was feeling hopeful that he and Celestino could create a fitting choreography for it. The short program, on the other hand, worried him immensely. There was a playlist of possible songs on his phone, and Yuuri played one after the other, improvising as he skated.

Moving to the music had never been a problem for him, dancing had always felt natural to Yuuri. A challenging choreography would not be enough to qualify for the Grand Prix or any other international competition, though. Yuuri knew that he needed to tell a story with his skating, and none of the songs he was trying ignited that spark of inspiration he needed to see a story unfold before him.

When he had tried every song he had pre-selected, he took a break, letting his eyes dart around the rink in search of a good idea. He wasn't surprised when inspiration did not suddenly hit him. Yuuri knew he shouldn't try to force it. Scrolling through the playlists on his phone he hesitated for a second, then tapped on the oldest one he had.

The music filled the rink immediately, and Yuuri drifted into the familiar movements. It had not been his intention to skate Viktor's program tonight but he was frustrated and anxious, and he hoped that the routine would calm his mind.

He hadn't skated the program since visiting the rink in St. Petersburg. For a split second he worried that it would feel disappointing to skate it now, away from the ice that had been Viktor's. It would never be the same as skating it in Russia, when it had allowed him to express fully how he felt about Viktor, his art, and his death. As he moved into the first step sequence Yuuri knew that the way he skated now did not look as impressive as it had in Russia, nor did it feel as good. Still, the program was different to what it had been before he had gone to St. Petersburg. The music carried him, and he gave himself over easily, welcoming the building strain on his muscles.

He moved into the second half of the program, skating in a wide arch in preparation of the next jump, the blades hitting the ice the only sound in the empty rink. Then, just before he went into the jump, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. Yuuri blinked and lost his focus on the jump. He crashed into the hard surface of the ice, and groaned and squeezed his eyes shut for several seconds, pain surging through his hip.

When he opened his eyes again, he had to choke down a startled cry - someone was holding out a hand to him.

"I'm sorry."

Yuuri didn't need to look up to know whom that voice belonged to. He had finally snapped and gone mad.

Viktor Nikiforov was still offering his hand for him to take, and there was an apologetic look on his incredibly life-like face.

Yuuri stared, unable to utter a word.

"Well, this clearly isn't ideal," Viktor said. "Are you hurt?"

Yuuri shook his head. The pain in his hip was forgotten.

"Can you get up?"

Yuuri took a moment to try and remember if he had hit his head when he fell, before pushing himself off the ground. Viktor dropped his hand and didn't comment on Yuuri's refusal to take it. He didn't say anything when Yuuri proceeded to stare at him but he seemed to be waiting for something. Now that they were standing opposite each other, Yuuri realised that Viktor's hair was long, falling over his shoulders and to his waist. He was taller than Yuuri, but not by much. When he looked him up and down Yuuri realised that Viktor was standing on the ice in black dress shoes. Yuuri looked back up, to Viktor's face. He was pale as death, but his eyes were of a piercing blue and very alive.

"I'm sorry," Viktor said again, and his voice sounded exactly as in the interviews Yuuri still watched every now and then. It was almost ridiculous and Yuuri had to bite down an hysteric laughing fit.

"I didn't want you to fall." Viktor made a small gesture towards Yuuri's leg that he had fallen on. When Yuuri didn't respond, Viktor laughed quietly. It sounded almost nervous. He twirled a finger around a strand of his silver hair.

"This is strangely nostalgic," he said in a small voice. "I haven't had long hair in a long time. I always liked it like this." There was a pause. Yuuri didn't understand. Nothing made sense.

"I shouldn't be talking about my hair, I guess. This must be a bit overwhelming for you. You wouldn't believe -"

Yuuri's eyes widened, trying to take it all in, Viktor rambling about his hair, just standing there.

"You haven't said anything," Viktor noted.

Yuuri opened his mouth. Picking the right thing to say was not easy. He finally settled for "what the hell are you doing here? I'm not asleep. Am I?"

Viktor looked slightly taken aback. "No, you're not," he said.

"Great," Yuuri said. He was catching up at last. "Really. Fantastic. I'm hallucinating now. I guess I shouldn't be surprised." He let out a sound of frustration. This was the last thing he needed after he had thought he was getting better.

Viktor had raised his hands as if to calm a wounded animal. "You're not hallucinating."

Yuuri snorted.

"Really, I'm here."

"No," Yuuri said, fully aware that he was arguing with his own imagination. "I'm sorry but you're dead! You've been pestering me in my dreams for weeks and now this. It's really not helpful at all, you know."

Viktor, strangely enough, looked hurt. "My apologies," he said formally. "I didn't realised you hated that dream so much."

Yuuri flinched. "I didn't mean that. It's just - I've got other things to worry about. This - obsession with you... it's not... you're dead! I like the dream. At least I did when it was just you skating."

Viktor's face grew even more pale. "What do you mean? I thought it stops when I'm done with the program?"

"It doesn't always stop." Yuuri could hear how hard his own voice sounded, and the expression on Viktor's face was painful to watch.

"I'm so sorry," Viktor said, and from the catch in his voice it was clear that he meant it. "I am so, so sorry - Yuuri! I never wanted you to see that, never! Please believe me, I can't control it."

"I believe you," Yuuri said. Hearing him say his name was surreal.

Viktor seemed relieved, but still looked unhappy.

"Why are you apologising anyway?" Yuuri asked. "It doesn't make sense, you're a part of my mind because I'm apparently crazy. But I've decided to keep skating, so why are you here? What's your plan, what's your function?"

"My function?" Viktor's eyebrows shot up in surprise but his voice was still calm. "That's new, haven't heard that before. I don't have a function. I don't have a plan. I don't have control over any of this. But I'm afraid you're stuck with me for a while."

"I don't want to be stuck with a hallucination!" Yuuri's voice was louder than he had meant in his frustration.

"But I'm not a hallucination," Viktor said quietly. "If you give me some time, I can prove it."

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> Panic attacks, mentions of murder and violence, therapy.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading! This chapter turned out a bit longer than I thought it would but there was just so much that needed to happen.  
> Viktor is more than just a dream now and Yuuri is not too happy about it right now, to put it mildly.  
> I'm really sorry about butchering that therapy session. I'm not a therapist and can't promise any accuracy, especially not for how it works in America. I've been able to pick a friend's brain, who knows quite a bit more about clinical psychology than I do, which was incredibly helpful, but still, it's probably far from how it would happen in real life.
> 
> I have updated the tags a bit and the expected number of chapters for this fic is now 15. That's the number I have planned, and so far I've been able to get the stuff I wanted into each chapter.
> 
> Please leave a comment letting me know what you think about this chapter! I've been looking forward to sharing it for so long and would love to read your opinions!!!


	5. I wonder if it hurts to live

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Emily Dickinson's poem "I measure every Grief I meet".
> 
> Now beta-read by my good friend Luria (who sadly doesn't have a profile I could link to).
> 
> Warnings are in the end notes again.

 

 

Viktor followed Yuuri home after he left the rink. Yuuri refused to talk to him, reasoning with himself that interacting with the hallucination was a terrible idea. He tried telling it to disappear, but Viktor only pouted and stayed by Yuuri's side.

When Yuuri entered the flat, the hallucination right behind him, he went straight to his bedroom in hopes of avoiding Phichit for the night. Explaining that he had now slipped into madness for good was not something he felt like dealing with in that particular moment. Half-heartedly, Yuuri hoped that Viktor would be gone in the morning - that his presence really was the consequence of Yuuri hitting his head on the ice.

Yuuri closed his bedroom door behind Viktor, who had curiously poked his head into the room before entering. Then Viktor did something Yuuri had not thought imaginary people generally did - he giggled. Spinning on his heels, Yuuri saw Viktor inspecting the large framed poster that hung over Yuuri's bed. The glossy photograph showed Viktor in a dramatic pose on the ice, wearing a glittering costume, his long hair carefully assembled into an elegant ponytail. If Yuuri hadn't known that the Viktor who was currently running a finger along the poster's frame was a figment of his own imagination, he might have collapsed under the weight of his embarrassment. There were two further posters, smaller than the first one, but framed and regularly dusted with equal care. Viktor looked at them for a long time before turning around to face Yuuri.

"You've got posters of me on your wall," he said as if that was somehow a meaningful revelation.

Yuuri's face was burning but he managed a non-committal shrug. He didn't have to justify his choice of wall decoration to someone who wasn't actually there.

Viktor was looking at him with wide, shiny eyes. "I didn't think anyone still cared."

In the moment of silence that followed, Yuuri saw something change in Viktor's expression that made it very hard to believe that it was not, in fact, the real Viktor Nikiforov standing in Yuuri's room.

"What do you mean?" Yuuri asked, well aware that he was indulging the hallucination, possibly feeding it by granting it any attention.

Viktor blinked a few times before replying, and Yuuri had the horrifying thought that he might cry.

"I've been dead for nine years," Viktor said, his voice barely more than a whisper, and Yuuri felt a sharp pinch in his stomach at the words. "I didn't think anyone would still have my picture on their wall. I didn't think I would be of any interest to someone I never met. There are other gold medallists out there to be admired, the skating world has moved on."

"I haven't."

Yuuri wanted to slap his hands over his mouth as soon as the words escaped. He felt stupid and defeated, admitting his unhealthy obsession to the ghostly figure that stared at him with unwavering attention from across the room.

"I think-" Viktor began but Yuuri interrupted him. "Forget it." He reached for the door handle behind him. "This is insane, I shouldn't be talking to you. Can you just leave, please?" He opened the door, and after a second Viktor moved past him and left the room.

Yuuri shut the door behind him and leaned against it, suddenly unable to hold himself upright for another second. This new step in his descent into madness was too much. He couldn't handle it, couldn't accept that his slippery grip on reality was now so loose that he was fabricating an alternative turn of events that allowed for Viktor to be anything but dead and gone.

 

When his alarm woke him up the next morning, Yuuri's first conscious thought was a hopeful plea that the previous day's strangeness had not made it through the night.

He was bitterly disappointed when he came into the kitchen, only to find Viktor reading the news on Phichit's smartphone over his shoulder. Yuuri bit down a remark and made an effort to greet Phichit like a normal person. While he drank his tea, he couldn't help but glance at Viktor, who was now sitting on the kitchen counter, apparently waiting for Yuuri to finish his breakfast.

Phichit left for classes, and Yuuri acknowledged Viktor's presence with an accusing stare.

"You're still here," he said as he moved into the living room, inevitably followed by Viktor.

"I told you you'd be stuck with me for a while." Viktor looked perfectly happy with his role as a constant reminder of Yuuri's degenerating mental state.

"What do I have to do to change that?" Yuuri asked and watched the smile fall from Viktor's face.

"You still think I'm a hallucination."

"Of course I do. What other explanation is there for you being here?"

"Well," Viktor said. "That's a complicated story but one I'm willing to share."

"No thanks."

Viktor looked disappointed. "Why not?"

Yuuri sighed, and decided that blunt honesty was the best policy in this situation. "The more you talk the more I want to believe you and I can't have that. I'm supposed to be a competitive figure skater, which I can't be if I go completely crazy. So no complicated stories. Just leave me alone. Please."

For a while, there was silence. Yuuri didn't look at Viktor but could feel him watching him.

"Okay," Viktor finally said. "I can do that. I'll stay away for the day but I'll have to come back to you every now and then. At least until international competitions start." His voice was even and controlled, and he moved towards the apartment door.

"Why?" Yuuri asked, unable to hold back the question, trying to shed some light on what was happening to him. Viktor opened the door but looked back to Yuuri, holding his gaze before he answered. "I'll explain tonight, if you want," he said before he left.

Yuuri took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through his nose. He had not failed to notice the pained expression that moved across Viktor's face like a shadow every time Yuuri expressed his conviction that he existed solely in his imagination. This was something he needed to discuss with Dr. Cooper in his next therapy session. It was possible that him hallucinating meant that there was no way around medication anymore, and Yuuri did not like that thought at all.

 

Viktor kept his promise and Yuuri did not see him during training, or later when he received the new version of the song for his free program. It was much better than it had been before, slightly more upbeat and certainly more hopeful than it had sounded before. Yuuri listened to the piece several times and then wrote a long email to thank his former classmate for the work she had put into the music. He forwarded the music to Celestino, feeling like he was making progress in at least one aspect of his life.

While he did his best to concentrate on mundane, daily tasks, Viktor was always at the back of his mind. As much as Yuuri hated the fact that he was hallucinating, and all that it implied, he could not lie to himself. He was curious. It would be impossible to deny Viktor the chance to try and explain his sudden appearance in Yuuri's life. Yuuri knew that it was potentially dangerous to give his hallucination the power to justify its presence. And yet, he reasoned with himself, as long as he knew that it wasn't real, what harm could it be to listen to it? He had decided to be selfish, and while years of skating and dance practice and diet plans meant that resisting such things as ice cream and pizza were not much of a challenge to him, the temptation of talking to the person who's skating had haunted him for years might just be too strong to not give in to - even if this Viktor was nothing more than a poor imitation of the real man. Was it too much to ask to blow caution to the wind, just for one evening, and let him talk to him?

Phichit was home for dinner, and entertained Yuuri with stories about his lecturers. Yuuri was content to let him do most of the talking but made sure to pay attention despite the anxious feeling in his gut. Viktor had said he would be back tonight, and Yuuri kept looking around the flat, wondering if he would just suddenly materialise out of thin air.

After dinner, he went to his room and briefly considered taking down the posters before deciding against it. Viktor had already seen them. Even if he hadn't, he must have known about them, since he was a creation of Yuuri's own mind. Logically it would follow that Viktor knew everything Yuuri knew. Strangely, Yuuri did not seem to know everything Viktor knew.

Thinking about it made Yuuri feel even more detached from reality than he already was, so he forced himself to stop. Nervously pacing up and down in his bedroom, he jumped when Phichit knocked on his door and announced that he was going out with friends. He invited Yuuri along but wasn't surprised when Yuuri declined. Sometimes he felt guilty for being far less sociable than his best friend but tonight Yuuri thought that Phichit going out at least meant that he wouldn't overhear him talking to himself.

Phichit left and Yuuri went back to pacing. Time passed and he began to wonder if Viktor would show up at all. He settled on his bed, back to the wall, feet stretched out. For a while he scrolled through social media, something he rarely did.

Nearly an hour after Phichit had left, a small knock on his door made Yuuri look up from his phone. Maybe he had imagined the sound.

"Come in?" he said, half expecting that nothing would happen.

Then the door was opened and Viktor entered the room, looking pale and somehow lost. He closed the door behind himself, and sat down on the floor, across the room from Yuuri. He looked at him but didn't say anything. Yuuri cleared his throat.

"You're back," he said.

"I don't have to stay long. Just a few minutes, I think."

"No, I didn't mean - I'm sorry I've been so rude."

"I understand why you don't want me around. And I don't know if I can convince you that you're not losing your mind."

"You probably can't. But I'll let you talk if that's what you want."

Viktor nodded slowly and sat up a little straighter. "I need to try, at least. Should I tell you everything from the beginning?"

Yuuri took a moment to accept that he was about to engage in a discussion with himself, and that it was an exercise in futility. There was nothing to be done about the fact that he both wanted to talk to Viktor and let him explain himself, and needed him to disappear as soon as possible.

"No. Let me ask you something first. You said that I'd be stuck with you for a while, and earlier you said that you'd have to come back every now and then until international competitions. Why?"

Viktor seemed to have anticipated the question. "There will be people there I can stay with."

"Stay with?"

"This would make much more sense if you didn't think of me as your hallucination."

"Of course you would say that."

"Of course I would. But what if I'm right?" Yuuri shrugged, not allowing himself to consider that as a possibility. Viktor looked truly desperate to have him understand something.

"I don't... come from you but I am connected to you. There are other people I can connect with but I can only do that if they're close enough. That's why you will have to wait until we meet them at international competitions."

"What other people?" Yuuri's heart was racing with the implications of what Viktor had just said.

"Yuri Plisetsky and Chris Giacometti," Viktor said very clearly. Yuuri waited for more, for an explanation. The conversation had taken a turn he had not foreseen. It made no sense for his hallucination to introduce other people into the equation. His claim of being somehow connected to two other top skaters was too easy to disprove.

"Why would you say that?" he croaked.

"Because," Viktor said, his eyes burning into Yuuri's, "it's the truth. I told you I could prove that I'm real. All you need to do is ask either of them. They won't lie."

Yuuri's head was spinning, and he pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes to block out the world for a moment. The only explanation that made sense to him was that his hallucination was trying to stall for time. International competitions were months away, and until then he would have to either believe Viktor or fight him.

"Why those two?" he opened his eyes again, and saw that Viktor was watching him intently.

"I can't be sure," he said, voice still calm but Yuuri noticed that he was clenching his fists in his lap. "I think it's because they were important to me."

Yuuri fought the urge to tell Viktor that that was not a convincing explanation for anything. He sighed deeply, and let his gaze wander over Viktor.

"You want me to believe that you're not a hallucination."

"Yes."

"That you're some sort of... ghost?"

"If you will."

"And that you are the actual Viktor Nikiforov, come to haunt me from the grave?"

"I haven't come to haunt you. Not really. I'm sorry if that's what it feels like to you."

In the ensuing pause, Yuuri noticed again that Viktor was playing with his long hair, seemingly absent-minded.

"If you're a ghost, why is your hair long? You had cut it before... you know."

Viktor let go of the strand of hair he had been twirling around a finger. "I don't really know why. It might be because that's what you remember me looking like."

"I remember you cutting your hair."

"I never had long hair with Yura or Chris, it's specific to you. I don't know why."

Yuuri shifted forward slightly, curious to hear more against his better judgement.

"Alright," he said, "tell me the whole story."

Viktor nodded and let out a shaky laugh.

"I haven't done this in ages and it's my one shot to make you believe me. I'm a bit nervous."

A small smile stole its way onto Yuuri's face at the absurdity of the idea. "If you're really Viktor there's no reason to be nervous. I'm the one with the posters, remember?"

It was hard to believe that he was now joking with his hallucination to make it feel better. Viktor grinned. "That's true. I wonder how you will feel about them once you realise you're not imagining me."

"You'll have a lot of convincing to do before I worry about that," Yuuri said, sounding more confident than he felt.

"Okay." Viktor leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. "I suppose I should start with me dying. You've seen it happen in the dreams."

Yuuri nodded, the images clear in his mind.

"I was dead. Technically, I still am, of course. But I remember being there, on the ice, after they had taken my body away. It was cold, it was dark, I was confused. I couldn't open my eyes, or move, or call for help, and I didn't know what was happening."

Despite his doubts, Yuuri felt a chill run down his spine. Viktor could have chosen to go into details, stress some words more than others, make his voice as dramatic as the story perhaps demanded. Somehow the flat calmness of his voice made it more believable.

"After a while people started coming back to the rink for training. I could hear them skate around me. I thought I had become part of the ice. They didn't see me and if I was in the ice, how could they? I recognised their voices, Yakov, Georgi, Mila, everyone who trained there. The first person I saw was Yura. He was sitting on the ice and crying. Some of the other kids in his group had come over to see what was wrong, and their coach was trying to calm him down. I liked Yura, he never listened to his coach and had a tendency to hide in the changing rooms so he could see us older kids train in the afternoons. He was so impatient, couldn't wait to be old enough to compete. He reminded me of myself sometimes. I knew he was sad that I had died, but I hadn't realised... I had never seen him cry before. He was six years old, and I had seen him be yelled at by more than one coach when he wouldn't listen to them, but he never cried. I knew he was crying because of me because I could feel his pain as if it was my own. I can't explain it any better. I knew that he was the reason I could suddenly see, and when he left the rink that day I was able to follow him. It took a few days before he could see me too."

Viktor paused, giving Yuuri the chance to try and wrap his mind around it.

"You've been, well, _around_ ever since you died?" he asked, hoping that the wording wasn't offensive to Viktor. How could it be that Viktor was telling him all this? If he was a hallucination, Yuuri must be the one coming up with the story. When he tried to find a piece of it anywhere in his mind, however, there was nothing there. He didn't know how the dots connected, leading to Viktor ending up with him in his room. His story was out of reach to Yuuri and it did not feel like a creation of his own mind. Yuuri could almost see his thoughts becoming entangled as he tried to understand, and it was becoming less and less likely that he would ever be able to make sense of it all.

"The day I followed Yura home from the rink was a few weeks after I had died. I have memories from all the years since, I've read books and watched films and skated. I like to think I've developed as a person, and, to be honest, I don't usually look like this either. As I said, I'm not used to the long hair anymore. I died at eighteen but I'm twenty-seven now."

For a second, Yuuri could see it, like a flicker of light. Viktor's hair short, the slenderness of his body matured into something stronger, his cheekbones and chin a touch more angular. Viktor must have noticed it, too, because he smiled and said "see?"

"That was strange," Yuuri whispered.

"It's not all in your head, Yuuri. I want you to - no, I _need_ you to believe me."

"Tell me the rest of the story first," Yuuri demanded, and Viktor complied.

"I stayed with Yura for three years. He started training under Yakov and somehow managed to persuade him and his grandfather to let him go to Moscow to see the Rostelecom Cup. Chris was competing and I hated not being able to talk to him. As long as Yura was in the same city, though, I could follow Chris around and see what he was up to. I missed him a lot. He was the one international skater I had really been friends with, and as much as I like Yura, he was still a child and I desperately wanted to talk to someone my own age again. After the Cup I decided to go with Chris to Switzerland rather than returning to St. Petersburg with Yura."

Viktor's brow was furrowed, and he looked a little worried. "I should mention that I couldn't move too far away from Yura. If I went further than a few kilometres away I sort of lost focus and had to find him again. It often made me feel like I was on a leash." A sad expression flitted across his face, and for a moment he looked like an animal in a zoo, caged and defeated. He carried on before Yuuri could say anything, and the pain in his eyes vanished.

"So not going back with him was a gamble. I didn't know what would happen but I had to try. Luckily for me, Chris had already started dreaming of me, much like you did, and it didn't take long for him to notice me. I stayed with Chris for several years. I would have stayed longer, but I was getting in the way so I had to leave."

"What do you mean?" Yuuri interrupted him. He could sense that Viktor was trying to brush over that particular part of the story and Yuuri wanted to know why. Viktor sighed, took a breath, and looked around the room. For the first time he seemed truly lost for words.

"Tell me," Yuuri pressed on. "Tell me something I wouldn't come up with myself."

Viktor was playing with a strand of his hair again, apparently lost in thought. His eyes were focused on something far away, out of reach, but when he spoke his voice was firm and determined. "Other than Yura he was the only one who could see me. I was always around, because I had to be, and because he was the only person I could talk to. He was very aware of how much I needed him, his attention. He didn't go out with other friends as often as he would have had I not been around, and he couldn't explain to other people why he wasn't as social as he used to be. It got to a point where I realised that he would be better off if I left, so when he and Yura both competed at Skate America I went back home with Yura." He laughed quietly, as if at a private joke, despite the sadness in his eyes. "I've spent a lot of time on my own this past year and a half. Yura is a teenager now and I don't want to ruin his private life like I did Chris'."

The meaning of Viktor's words hit Yuuri like a wave that crashed inside the walls of his mind, submerging all other thoughts. If what Viktor was telling him was true - and Yuuri was horrified to realise that he was prepared to entertain that idea for the moment - then he, Yuuri, was only the third person Viktor had spoken to in nine years. He had left his friend because he perceived himself as a burden, had kept his distance from Yuri Plisetsky to allow him a freedom he himself did not have, and now Yuuri was the one who kept telling him to leave him alone.

"Viktor, I'm sorry."

"No, _I'm_ sorry. I wish I _was_ a hallucination. Then you could, I don't know, take some medication and-" he made a floating gesture with his hand in the air.

"Well, if you are a hallucination," Yuuri said carefully, "you're certainly very good at guilt-tripping me into considering your realness."

Viktor smiled at that, a small spread of his lips that warmed his eyes and softened his expression. Yuuri knew that there was more to the story. He still didn't know how Viktor had come to America with him, but he felt that it would be tactless to ask just then. Instead, he cleared his throat to catch Viktor's attention. "Come to the rink with me tomorrow," he said.

The genuine excitement on Viktor's face made something in Yuuri's chest swell and then crumble when Viktor's smile disappeared and he shook his head. "No, it's fine. I know you'd rather I stay away. Don't think you have to feel bad for me or put up with me while you're training just because of what I said."

It was clear to see that it was taking him some effort to say the words, and that he did not truly mean it. And Yuuri knew that he was the one making him feel that way, rejected, unwanted. He had never meant to hurt him with his rudeness, had only ever meant to protect himself from his own madness.

"I want you to come with me. Let me talk to my therapist alone, but come to the rink with me tomorrow."

 

"Yuuri, what you're telling me worries me."

Dr. Cooper's face was stern, a small crease on her forehead, her glasses on the small table next to her chair. "Hallucinations are a serious symptom that we cannot ignore. I need to ask you a few more questions to confirm or rule out certain disorders, and then we will have to think about how to continue your therapy."

Yuuri let her ask her questions, watched her tick boxes too small for him to see on her sheets of paper. He had pushed his building panic down and away while she had talked, and now he felt numb. Viktor wasn't in the room, like Yuuri had asked. He had accompanied him to training twice but hadn't skated himself, seemingly content to simply watch Yuuri work on his technique. At first, Yuuri had been nervous at the prospect of having Viktor's eyes follow him attentively and uninterrupted as he exerted himself on the ice but Viktor never laughed at his mistakes or commented on sloppy execution. It had been unexpectedly comfortable to have him there.

"There's no new diagnosis for now," Dr. Cooper said after consulting her questionnaire. "That's good news. We'll focus on treating the hallucinations as another symptom of your stress. I would encourage you to ignore it as much as you can. The less you engage with it the better. We don't want you to accidentally learn that this is a solution to your problems. The hallucination may seem enticing, but there is nothing it can offer you in terms of successful treatment of your stress and anxiety. Don't listen to what it may say to you, don't believe it, and don't do anything it may ask of you, especially if it could endanger you or other people."

Dr. Cooper had spoken in her usual calm voice, but when Yuuri left her office that day his ears rang as if she had yelled. Of course she was right. He had let himself go and allowed himself, foolishly, unacceptably, to consider it a possibility that Viktor was who he claimed to be. As truthful as the story he told sounded, it was not real, and holding on to the wish that it might be was not an adequate solution to Yuuri's problems. He shoved his clenched fists into his pockets, and told himself, for the hundredths time, that Viktor Nikiforov was dead.

When he came home Viktor was sitting at his desk in his room, reading a book he had propped up against Yuuri's open laptop.

"Hi," he said. "I like your books."

Yuuri didn't respond. He would have to tell him that there would be no more casual conversations between them. Viktor had turned around on his chair to look at Yuuri.

"How was your day?" he asked, and Yuuri knew that what he meant was _how was therapy?_

He inhaled, paused, exhaled. "I want to believe that you're real but that doesn't make it true. I'm sorry but my therapists says I need to ignore you if I want to get better." He bit his lip, Viktor's words about leaving Chris swirling around his head.

"Oh," Viktor said, his tone flat. "I had hoped for a ceasefire of sorts, until you can speak to Yura or Chris."

Yuuri looked to his feet to avoid the badly hidden hurt on Viktor's face. "That's months away," he whispered. "I can't pretend like this is okay for that long."

"I understand. I will do my best not to interfere with your life until then. If I could spend the nights on the living room sofa I wouldn't need to speak to you at all."

Yuuri nodded, eyes still on his feet. Viktor passed him, pausing by the door. "Good night," he said, and Yuuri nodded again, guilt clawing at his insides, making it hard to breathe.

Again and again he told himself that it was for the best. Viktor was a hallucination he needed to forget. The real Viktor was buried somewhere in Russia, and Yuuri's obsession with him was evidently unhealthy and detrimental to his mental state. The hallucination's power to make him feel guilty for abandoning him was only one more thing that signalled how crazy he really was. He had to ignore the persistent doubts in his mind, the strong feeling that he was causing real pain to a real person. Somehow, he needed to make himself believe that the fact that he had not dreamed of Viktor at all since encountering him at the rink was further proof of what he was - a symptom of Yuuri's affliction, a manifestation of his most confused and disordered thoughts.

That night Yuuri lay in his bed, forcing his eyes shut and willing himself to relax enough to sleep. Thoughts of Viktor, sad and alone on the living room sofa seemed to press against the insides of his skull like something that wanted out. His head hurt, and he squeezed his eyes shut tighter and covered his face with his arms.

When sleep came it felt like falling and when he hit the ground he was back at the rink in St. Petersburg. Viktor was at the centre of the rink, silver hair floating around him as if he was under water. He didn't move or speak, and only his slow breathing and the touch of pink on his cheeks made him look any different than a statue carved from the same ice he was standing on. Yuuri moved closer, taking a tentative step onto the slippery surface, checking his feet only to see that he was not wearing skates. A sudden but strong urge to cross the distance and shake Viktor into movement had taken hold of him. Carefully, he took step after step towards him but long before he could reach him, the door behind him slammed open, two figures emerging and striding towards the ice. Yuuri turned to Viktor who seemed to be waiting, his face devoid of any expression. The men stepped onto the ice, passing Yuuri as if he wasn't there. Yuuri couldn't speak as something was constricting his throat. One of the men stepped behind Viktor and placed his hands around his neck in an almost gentle touch. Viktor didn't struggle as the man's grip tightened. Yuuri could see his breathing becoming less even, more laboured, a ragged sound escaping his lips, and still he didn't struggle. Yuuri couldn't move his feet but stretched out both arms in a desperate attempt to reach Viktor. The second man flung out one arm, the dim light catching for a moment on the blade in his hand, before he drove it deep into the centre of Viktor's chest.

Yuuri awoke with a burning in his lungs and a hand clutched over his heart. The darkness was pressing down on him, with the by now terrifyingly familiar feeling of being unable to breathe enough. He was gasping for air, the panic rising in his chest, swallowing him in an instant. Something inside him broke apart and he couldn't breathe and hold the pieces together at the same time. Possibly, probably, this was how he died. There was evidently something wrong, and a large tumor in his brain was the best explanation for the dreams, the hallucinations, the feeling of emptiness, and the pain that seared behind his temples.

The bedroom door was opened and then closed again, and someone quieter than Phichit came to sit on the edge of the bed next to him.

"Breathe," Viktor said. Yuuri took a long shaky breath and coughed as if he suffered from a bad cold. "I'm sorry." Viktor said, and for a moment Yuuri wanted to throw himself into his arms as he had done with Phichit when he came to comfort him after he woke up crying. He pushed the urge down and focused on calming his breathing.

"I wish I could spare you from seeing those things."

In the darkness Yuuri could see Viktor lift a hand as if to touch Yuuri's shoulder but he seemed to think better of it and let the hand rest on the mattress instead.

"You know what I dream of?" Yuuri asked.

"To a degree. And I'm afraid it's all my fault but we can talk about that in the morning. You should go to Phichit now."

Phichit, as always, made space for Yuuri to lie next to him and let the warmth radiating off of him guide Yuuri back to sleep. Viktor stayed in the living room.

 

A haze of tiredness made Yuuri feel sluggish and distracted throughout the next day. Phichit's worry was subtle but noticeable and made Yuuri feel guilty all over again. He was supposed to be getting better.

The sofa had been empty when Yuuri left Phichit's room in the morning and he was equal parts relieved and disappointed. He knew that it was foolish, unfair, childish even, to push Viktor away and then lament his absence. There were questions he wanted to ask despite knowing that he couldn't allow himself to do so.

The dream had left him with a feeling of emptiness that he could not shake. Afterimages swam through the swamp of his mind and nothing he did would chase them away. The look of indifference on Viktor's face as the air was pressed from his lungs and the knife's blade entered his chest made Yuuri want to scream every time the memory of it flashed before his eyes.

When Viktor returned to the flat that evening Yuuri gestured for him to follow him into his room when Phichit wasn't looking. He said something about being tired and going to bed early and tried to ignore the nagging feeling of foreboding at Phichit's worried glance as he wished him a good night.

"If you can't fall asleep," Phichit said, "come to my room if you think it will help."

"Thank you," Yuuri said, and meant it. As difficult as all of this was for him, he knew it would be much harder without Phichit, who had never hinted at the possibility that it might be strange or inappropriate for Yuuri to hold on to him at night on an almost regular basis.

When he closed his bedroom door behind himself, Viktor had walked over to the window but he turned his back to the view of the dark street when Yuuri entered. For the first time Yuuri noticed faint purplish shadows under his eyes. He looked as tired as Yuuri felt and he seemed to want to say something but didn't. Yuuri leaned against the wall next to the door because sitting down felt too comfortable, too familiar.

"You know what I dream?" he said without preamble or greeting.

Viktor nodded hesitantly.

"Do you have the same dreams?"

"Not all of them. Only the ones that I am in." His voice was quiet in a way that made Yuuri uneasy because he could feel that it was somehow linked to Viktor's refusal to struggle for his life in the dream.

"Can you control what you do in the dreams?"

"I can't. And I am sorry."

"Last night," Yuuri said, and saw Viktor's gaze shift from his face to a blank space of wall next to him. "What happened? That's not how you died. And you were just standing there. Why didn't you do anything?"

"I'm sorry." It was little more than a whisper, barely audible even in the quiet of the room, and the way Viktor looked shifted again, his hair suddenly short. What didn't change was that unsettling emptiness in his eyes. Yuuri looked at this twenty-seven year old Viktor, his down-turned face and sagging shoulders, and he wanted to frame his face with his hands, make him look up, and puzzle out the sadness in his eyes so that he could chase it away for good.

"I'll leave you alone for the night," Viktor said. Yuuri wanted to protest but he knew that he shouldn't, so he didn't.

 

He was at the rink once again, and he felt tears on his face even before he saw Viktor on the ice. His hair was short, as it had been earlier that evening, and his eyes were closed.

"Please," Yuuri managed to say. "Before something happens, do something."

Viktor didn't react, remaining still and frozen on the ice.

It was only a matter of time until the men would enter and Viktor would die again, Yuuri could sense it in the air like an impending thunderstorm. He stepped onto the ice without hesitation, determined to get to Viktor this time, because if he let him go like this again there would be no turning back from that. This was final, and Viktor might have resigned himself to apathy but Yuuri would not let him stand there and die like it was nothing, like no one cared.

The way across the ice was much farther than it would have been on a real rink, or maybe Yuuri's steps were just immeasurably slow. A wave of dark water spilled from the edges of the rink like black ink and swept towards Viktor.

"Move!" Yuuri yelled. The water collected at Viktor's feet, climbed up his legs, and locked him in a sphere that surrounded him head to foot. No sound escaped it, and Yuuri ceased his yelling. He pushed against the fabric of the dream that slowed him down and kept him from Viktor, and reached out and through the icy cold water. It was like walking through a curtain that drenched him to the bone, leaving him trembling uncontrollably in the cold. Viktor still had his eyes closed in the muddy darkness but Yuuri knew that he was drowning slowly.

He moved closer and slung his arms around Viktor's frozen body, holding him tight, and Viktor shivered. He couldn't see his face but he knew that Viktor's eyes were open now.

"Wake up. Wake me up," Yuuri said.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: therapy, panic attack, violence
> 
> Welcome back and thank you for reading! It took me quite a while to finish this chapter - I moved, started a new university course, and needed to discuss some stuff with my newly appointed beta reader ;D   
> I also readily admit that I made myself stupidly sad writing this chapter. I just don't like seeing Viktor suffer :/
> 
> Please leave a comment and share your thoughts! I really want to know what you think about this chapter!!


	6. Hope is a subtle glutton

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with a new chapter - finally!
> 
> Chapter title from Emily Dickinson's poem of the same name.  
> Beta'd by Luria.
> 
> One warning in the end notes, just in case.

 

 

This time it was Yuuri who went to comfort Viktor after the dream ended. He could still feel how cold Viktor had been in his arms, out on the ice, closed off from the world by a wall of dark water. Yuuri pushed his glasses onto his nose and climbed out of bed, taking the few steps to his bedroom door without turning the lights on. It was dark in the living room as well, and deadly quiet but Yuuri could see enough to recognise Viktor sitting up on the sofa, arms wrapped around his knees.

Yuuri sat down next to him, shivering slightly, unsure if it was actually cold in the room or if it was just the remnants of the dream still clinging to his skin. For the longest moment nobody spoke, and Yuuri knew that Viktor would stay quiet all night if Yuuri didn't address him first - because Yuuri had told him to stay away and not talk to him.

"Why do you keep dying?" he asked, quietly, stupidly.

"I'm dead even if I don't die in a dream."

"I know that," Yuuri said. "But I don't understand why you just let it happen. It's as if - as if you _want_ it to happen." There was more of an answer in Viktor's silence than Yuuri could have expected in any number of long sentences of explanation.

"I'm sorry about the dreams," Viktor said. "I'm sorry they make you see things that have nothing to do with you, I'm sorry they disturb your sleep, I'm sorry they affect you the way they do. I would stop them if I could."

"I know." Yuuri looked at Viktor, who hadn't turned his head towards Yuuri but had instead fixed his gaze on a point of air in the middle distance, and it felt like the moment in the dream when the water reached him and he still kept his eyes closed. It was unwise, and Yuuri was aware of it, but he still reached out to touch Viktor's shoulder.

"I think you can stop apologising now. I know you don't mean to upset me. I can't imagine the dreams are any nicer from your perspective." He was speaking to Viktor as if he was real again. It was impossible not to, when he looked so small and lost, despite appearing in his older form now, with his hair short and his face less boyish.

"The dreams aren't nice, but they're right."

"What do you mean?" Yuuri asked. He briefly thought of the very real possibility of Phichit walking into the living room and seeing him talk to himself with one hand awkwardly stretched out in the air. It didn't matter. Phichit might think he had lost his mind, and it was more than likely that he had, but Yuuri needed to figure Viktor out and understand his sadness, whether he was real or not.

"I keep dying and yet I'm not fully gone." Viktor finally turned to look Yuuri in the face, and with one short sentence made Yuuri's heart pound painfully, and then break. "I wish I was."

It was something Yuuri had never considered. He had lain awake in a hotel room in St. Petersburg and wished with all his heart for Viktor to be alive. For years he had mourned, cowered before the vast injustice that was Viktor's death, cried his eyes out at his inability to understand _why_. It had never crossed his mind that Viktor might _want_ to be dead.

Hot tears ran down his face before he could stop them and he kept staring at Viktor, who looked surprised. If this was madness, he had reached the height of it. Viktor's fingers were on his cheek, carefully wiping at the tears.

"Why are you crying?" he said with such a sense of wonder in his voice that Yuuri almost laughed at the ridiculousness of the question.

"Because," he said and took a shuddering breath, "of what you said."

Viktor was quiet for a moment, still stroking Yuuri's cheek. "Why do you care so much?"

How could Viktor not see?

"Why do you care so little?"

Viktor sighed. "The dead should be dead, wouldn't you agree? There's nothing for me here. I can't be more than a distraction - or an unwanted guest - to anyone."

Yuuri shook his head, causing Viktor to drop his hand. "I think you're wrong. You matter to people."

A little puff of air escaped Viktor's nose, pointing to some irony Yuuri seemed to have missed. "You don't even believe that I'm here." It wasn't said to accuse or point out a flaw, it was simply a stated fact that Yuuri could not fully deny.

"That's my own fault, though," he said in an attempt to take some of the harshness away from it. "I would be much more likely to believe you if my mind wasn't such a mess."

"I don't know what to say to that," Viktor said. "But thank you for coming out here and talking to me."

Yuuri nodded, relieved to see a small smile on Viktor's face. "Is there anything I can do to make the dreams less... like this?"

"I don't think so," Viktor said.

"Are you sure?"

Viktor sighed deeply. "The core issue is that you think I'm you. You can't help someone you think doesn't really exists. I'll be alright, I'll be gone as soon as I can."

This was not the direction Yuuri had intended for their conversation to go but there was nothing he could say to make it any better. He stood up from the sofa and went back to his bedroom, where he let his gaze wander through the darkness aimlessly, looking for a solution.

 

Phichit took the news that his best friend was having vivid hallucinations of his dead idol surprisingly well. Somehow the English language was causing Yuuri much more trouble than usual, and he was fumbling for the right words to express that he knew that Viktor could not be real, even though, at the same time, he was starting to believe that he might be.

"Look man, at this point I feel like I won't be surprised by anything," Phichit said when Yuuri had finally finished his story, having stuttered incoherently about everything that had happened since he had first seen Viktor at the rink.

"Which doesn't mean that I'm not worried," Phichit continued. "But it's good that you told me."

They were sitting on the bed in Phichit's room while his pet hamsters explored the duvet. Phichit picked one of them up carefully and handed the tiny creature to Yuuri, who took it and let it sit in his hands for a while.

"So is he here now?" Phichit looked around the room as if he was expecting Viktor to shift into view out of thin air. Yuuri shook his head.

"I asked him to let me talk to you alone."

"How nice of him to let you do that," Phichit said with the tiniest hint of sarcasm.

"I don't know if that makes it more or less likely that he's real," Yuuri said. "I can't believe I'm considering it at all. I'm completely crazy."

"Maybe." Phichit sounded less concerned than Yuuri would have expected. "There's an easy solution, so why do you worry so much?"

For a moment Yuuri wasn't sure if he had heard him correctly. "What do you mean, an easy solution? I've been wrecking my brain for days on end -"

"Yeah," Phichit interrupted, "but you're clearly not thinking straight."

"Clearly," Yuuri said dryly.

Phichit laughed. "It's so obvious, Yuuri! All you need to do to figure out whether or not you're hallucinating is call Chris Giacometti and _ask_."

Yuuri blinked. "What?"

Phichit looked at him like he was explaining to a very young child that one plus one equals two. Yuuri's brain felt like white noise.

"I mean, you said you'd have to wait to meet him or Plisetsky but this is the twenty-first century. We have phones."

"Right. Phones."

"Yeah," Phichit said, stretching the word into several syllables. "I know you haven't been getting much sleep, but you're really being a bit dense right now."

Yuuri couldn't pretend to be mad, he just laughed. Then he realised what Phichit was saying.

"Wait. No. I can't call Giacometti."

"Yes, you can." Phichit leaned over to where he had dropped his phone and picked it up. "It would probably be smart to ask Viktor for his number as a first test but he's not here and I happen to have Chris' number anyway."

"No," Yuuri said, "what I mean is that I can't call someone and ask if they have the same hallucinations. I've had maybe three very short conversation with Giacometti in my life, he's going to think I'm crazy. Or high."

Phichit just shrugged. "That wouldn't be so bad. If it turns out he hasn't seen Viktor's ghost you can always text him later and say you were on a bad mushroom trip or something."

Yuuri raised his eyebrows. "I've never been on a... mushroom trip."

"Does Chris know that?"

Phichit was obviously enjoying this exchange far more than he should. "Look, don't overthink it, just call and ask if he's seen Viktor."

A sudden rush of adrenaline pinched at Yuuri's stomach.

"What if he says yes?"

"Well," Phichit took Yuuri's hand and squeezed it. "Then we'll deal with it. Now call him."

"What time is it in Europe?" Yuuri asked. If he was going to call someone he barely knew to ask about his dead best friend he could at least avoid doing it in the middle of the night.

"Around seven or eight in the evening, I think."

"Maybe I should call tomorrow."

"Or you call now and in two minutes you'll know what's going on." Phichit said and balanced his phone on Yuuri's knee. Yuuri sighed, took the phone, and pressed the dial button. At the first ring he desperately wanted to hang up. He couldn't deal with this. If it turned out that he was, in fact, hallucinating, then he would have to accept that and probably seek more intensive therapy. And Viktor would disappear. Yuuri had tried hard not to listen to Viktor, not to believe anything he said, not get used to his presence - and he had not been successful enough at that to avoid the feeling that if Viktor left, he would lose something important.

"Phichit, how nice of you to call," Christophe Giacometti's voice greeted him.

"Uhm," Yuuri said. "It's not Phichit. It's Yuuri. Yuuri Katsuki."

"Yuuri! What's up?" If Chris was surprised to receive a call from someone he barely knew, he was hiding it well.

"Uhm," Yuuri said, looking to Phichit for help. _Just ask_ , Phichit mouthed.

"Uh, Chris," Yuuri tried again, his heart beating with such force that he thought it might just be too much and the organ might simply give up and stop altogether.

"This will sound strange but have you... have you seen, I mean in the past few years... Viktor?"

Silence.

Then: "Oh. Yuuri." Did Chris pity him in his craziness? "Yes, I have. Have you?"

Yuuri nodded, numb and confused, and it took him a moment to find his voice. "Yes," he croaked and he pressed Phichit's phone against his ear as if that could bring Chris closer and make this all possible.

"Well," Chris said. "Tell him I say hi."

"You're not joking... right?" Yuuri was aware of Phichit staring at him wide-eyed.

"No. Are you alright?"

Yuuri was so thrown by the question that he didn't know how to answer it. "What?" he asked instead.

"Are you alright? Any nightmares?" Chris seemed genuinely worried, and somehow it wasn't making Yuuri as uncomfortable as people worrying about him normally did.

"Tonnes," he said, and Chris chuckled.

"Yeah, I figured. Should get better soon. It's smart of you to call me, by the way. I guess you weren't sure if you were imagining it all?"

Yuuri nodded again. "I thought I was going crazy. I'm still not convinced that I'm not. I'm in therapy." He winced at the last sentence. He hadn't intended to tell Chris that.

"I'm sorry, Yuuri, I hope you'll get better soon," Chris said. He still sounded concerned, but caring as well, and Yuuri found that he wasn't embarrassed. "Well, I'm glad you called me. As I said, it's smart." Chris continued. "I wouldn't have thought of that."

"Neither did I," Yuuri admitted. "It was Phichit's idea. He made me call."

"Clever boy," Chris said, sounding amused. "And how is Viktor? I haven't heard from him in a while."

"He's," again Yuuri struggled to find the right words. "He's not doing so well, actually. It's my fault, I didn't believe he was real! I kept refusing to talk to him. I - I'm being horrible to him!"

For a while, Chris was quiet and Yuuri was left with the realisation that he had been hurting an actual person. He had shut Viktor out when he was the only person he could turn to. He had told Viktor that his existence was _inconvenient_ to him.

"Well," Chris finally said. "I can't say I blame you. I understand why you wouldn't believe him. But now that you know could you please talk to him? Even if you don't get along that well. He can come stay with me again, just please be nice to him until we meet, okay?"

"Of course," Yuuri said. "I'm so sorry, I thought I was talking to myself the entire time. I'll be nice, I promise!"

After they had hung up, Yuuri handed the phone back to Phichit and wondered quietly why he was not more shocked. Perhaps it was simply too much to understand right that instant and the shock would come later. Or maybe he was too relieved to hear that he was indeed not going completely mad.

"Are you alright?" Phichit asked, echoing Chris. "You look... well. Like you've seen a ghost."

Yuuri groaned and Phichit laughed. "Good. If you can get annoyed then it can't be that bad. So he said Viktor is real?"

Yuuri nodded.

"That's good, right? You're not hallucinating."

"Or maybe I hallucinated Chris telling me that I'm not hallucinating."

"You _could_ have put the call on speaker," Phichit said, sounding amused. "But for now I believe you should stop worrying. You have figure skating legend Viktor Nikiforov's ghost to look after - that sounds like the kind of responsibility one shouldn't take lightly."

"You think this is hilarious."

Phichit nodded. "It's nicer than thinking that I'm going crazy too. He's been to your room right? What did he say about the posters?"

Yuuri could feel himself blush. "Oh no," he said.

"This is going to be so entertaining," Phichit said, smiling happily. "And of course you're hopefully feeling better now that you know that your brain is fine," he added.

 

It was impossible for Yuuri to concentrate on anything for the rest of the day while he waited for Viktor to return. Skating meant that he could push thoughts of how mean he had been to Viktor to the side at least for a few minutes at a time, despite the obvious fact that he was not doing his best work that day. He fell more often than he usually did and every time he hit the ice the image of Viktor stretching out his hand to help him up flashed through his mind. Viktor had been friendly from the beginning, apologising for the dreams, for the confusion, for his presence - and all Yuuri had done was to make feel Viktor like a nuisance that he wanted to get rid of as fast as he possibly could. When he was younger, Yuuri had dreamed of meeting Viktor face to face, as something akin to equals, competing in the same events. He had imagined what he would say to Viktor when they would be introduced at some international event or other. It was what Yuuri had worked towards, pushing himself hard every day at practice so that one day he would be able to join the small group of skaters who were good enough to compete internationally. Of course it had been more than his wish to meet his idol that had driven him, but he could not deny that meeting Viktor had always played a role in keeping him motivated through long hours of training while his classmates went off to spend the afternoons at the cinema or at each others' houses.

And now, Viktor had been around him for weeks, and Yuuri had essentially treated him like a rat infestation in his flat. He had missed out on the opportunity to be nice and maybe befriend the person whom he had admired for half his life. Viktor must despise him for how unapologetically rude Yuuri had been to him. All he could hope to do now was to make Viktor's remaining time with him as comfortable for him as possible.

When Yuuri headed home after training, Phichit wished him good luck. Yuuri was not entirely sure what luck would help him now. If there was a way that he could have a conversation with Viktor that would end in him not hating Yuuri, there would surely be more than luck at work. Phichit was staying at the rink to work on his free skate choreography, giving Yuuri the opportunity to talk to Viktor in private. Somehow Yuuri was more nervous about being in the flat alone with Viktor now that he knew, or at least believed, that he was really there. He was _the_ Viktor Nikiforov after all, and Yuuri had not expected to ever return home to his flat, exhausted and still slightly sweaty after training, and find him sitting on the sofa in his living room.

But Viktor was there when Yuuri came through the door, and once again Yuuri was hit with the sheer impossibility of the situation. Yuuri dropped his bag where he stood and sighed, allowing himself a moment to be flooded by his embarrassment and shame.

"What's wrong?" Viktor asked. Yuuri sat next to him on the sofa.

"We need to talk."

Viktor was kind enough not to point out that Yuuri had been the one to refuse conversation, and just nodded. He had short hair again but he still ran his hand through it in what Yuuri almost believed to be a nervous gesture.

"I called Chris toady," Yuuri said and watched as realisation spread across Viktor's face, a small smile and a tiny sparkle in his eyes.

"I should have thought of that," he said.

Yuuri shook his head. It didn't matter who should have thought of what.

"I'm sorry, Viktor. I didn't believe you and I was horrible to you. I'm so, so sorry." He made sure to look Viktor in the eye as he spoke, despite feeling the overwhelming urge to look away.

"That's okay -" Viktor started.

"No, it's not." He needed Viktor to know that he knew exactly how unacceptable his behaviour had been. The fact that Viktor must think of him as an incredibly rude person nearly brought tears to Yuuri's eyes. This was not what he had dreamed of all those years ago when he had imagined meeting Viktor.

"Really, it's not okay. I was so mean to you! I wish I could make it up to you somehow!"

Viktor smiled again. "I'm sure I can think of something."

"Please do. And let me know when you do! I don't want you to feel unwelcome anymore. You're not."

"Thank you," Viktor said, and he looked suddenly more alive than Yuuri had ever seen him. "Does this mean we can talk now? Every day?" There was so much hope in Viktor's voice and written all across his face. Seeing him like this was like a stab between the ribs. It betrayed his loneliness and Yuuri wanted to take it all away.

"Of course," he said. "If you want to talk to someone who's been shutting you out for weeks."

Viktor blinked and in the second or so that his eyes stayed shut Yuuri could see what he wouldn't say: _it's not like I can just talk to someone else_.

"Sorry," Yuuri said. "I know you'd rather talk to Chris or Yuri Plisetsky, but I'll be here for you for as long as you're in Detroit."

Viktor was quiet for a moment. His gaze wandered around the room before settling on Yuuri. There was nothing ghostly about him then, and it would have been easy to forget that he was anything other than the world class figure skater he had always been if it hadn't been for the fact that no one besides Yuuri could see him.

"You really believe me now," Viktor said. It was more a question than a statement and Yuuri nodded slowly.

"It's still possible that I'm hallucinating everything," he said because he felt that he owed Viktor the truth. "Or that this is all an elaborate joke that I don't understand. But I believe you're real."

"That's what I think sometimes. That's what I am now, a cosmic joke, nothing more."

"I didn't mean it like that," Yuuri said. Viktor's face was neutral but Yuuri was sure that there was something hidden behind that carefully assembled expression. Bitterness? Resignation?

"Can you tell me why I can see you but Phichit can't?" Yuuri asked in an attempt to change the subject.

Viktor sighed. "I wish I had a good answer to this. But I don't know much more than you do. I always thought that Chris and Yura could see me because they were very important to me but that might not be true. I didn't know you nine years ago but here we are."

What Viktor said made sense, but Yuuri thought that there was a chance that he was still right about the origin of their current situation. Yuuri had not been important to Viktor, but Viktor had been a central figure in Yuuri's life. Perhaps enough so to forge a connection, even if it was one-sided. He decided to keep this thought to himself for now. He was not sure if Viktor realised how deep his obsession with him rooted, and Yuuri was not keen on him finding out.

"Are there other people like you?" he asked, both to lead the conversation in a different direction, and because he was genuinely curious.

"I've only met two," Viktor said. "Both in St. Petersburg. I don't think it's a very common... condition. But I can see them and they can see me."

"So not everyone can become a -" Yuuri could feel redness rise in his cheeks. He couldn't bring himself to say _ghost_. It didn't seem fitting, and it felt impolite to say it - as if it was an unnecessary reminder of Viktor being technically no longer alive. He cleared his throat and tried again: "Not everyone can be like you?"

Viktor pretended not to have noticed Yuuri's embarrassment. "I think so. It's not a choice. I wasn't asked if I wanted this. I've thought about it a lot and come to the conclusion that it is most likely something that happens accidentally to some people."

Yuuri tried, and failed, to understand. Without realising it he had expected there to be a reason for Viktor's continued existence after his death. He had thought the cause of it was his own malfunctioning brain, and now that he had reached the conclusion that that wasn't it, he had thought that there would be an alternative explanation. It felt like too colossal a coincidence that the person he wanted to meet most in the world should happen to de facto survive his own death and then turn up on his doorstep years later. There must be a reason for it, some governing force or principle that he had not yet understood.

Yuuri did not consider himself a religious or even very spiritual person, but meeting Viktor was something that was, by all manners of logic, impossible and it made him seriously consider re-examining his relationship with beliefs in higher powers. Viktor's existence posed a puzzle that Yuuri did not have the knowledge to solve.

"Can you tell me about them? The others you met in St. Petersburg?"

Viktor nodded. "Sure." He looked glad to be allowed to talk about anything at all, and the guilt stabbed at Yuuri's insides again.

"The first was a woman, Irina. I met her after about a year and it was odd. I saw her on the metro, on a train, and I immediately knew that she was like me. She looked like everyone else but I knew she was dead, too." Yuuri could see the scene unfold in his mind, a younger Viktor in a crammed carriage, sudden recognition at the sight of a stranger.

"I introduced myself, and she promised to visit me at the rink. She was with her family and had to leave but she came to the rink the next day. We became good friends, she was always very nice. She had died six years earlier, when she missed a step on the stairs in her house and had an unlucky fall. Her daughter and her husband could both see her, and she lived with them as if she had never died. Of course they had to keep it secret, you know how psychologists are about people seeing things."

Yuuri laughed, quite involuntarily, and Viktor's smile was warm and far from accusing.

"Irina introduced me to another man like us. He was older, in his seventies or eighties, and I never knew his real name. He just called himself Grandfather. I never understood why, because he died as a young man. But like Irina he was with his family, and he had grandchildren, so maybe that's why. He'd had some sort of heart condition no one knew of, and he died of that. I didn't see him very often, he preferred to be with his family. I haven't seen him since I went to Switzerland with Chris but I met Irina a few times when I went to stay with Yura again. I knew where her family lived, so it was easy to find her, but the old man never told me his address."

"Do you miss them?"

"Sometimes. Irina suggested I send her emails when I moved to Switzerland, and I did but it took me a long time to even write a few sentences, especially when Chris was not in the house. I stopped writing after a while."

"It was easier when Chris was nearby?"

"Yes," Viktor said. This was apparently a topic he was interested in discussing. He was leaning forward slightly, and gesticulating with one hand. "This is one thing about my existence I can be certain of. Touching things, moving things, is easier when the person I am connected to is close. I've also noticed that it's a lot easier when the person is not mad at me. Yura would get frustrated with me and barely talk to me for days on end and even turning the pages of a book would be a struggle." He laughed, as if this memory was funny rather than depressing. "Of course I don't know exactly how it works, but I seem to exist only in connection to other people. The better the connection, the more I can do and the farther I can move away from them. When we first met I didn't even look like myself, I looked like I was eighteen again. When you started to doubt that you were hallucinating I was shifting between how I used to look and how I normally look now. For the past few days I've been more... solid."

Yuuri could tell that speaking of his condition made Viktor nervous, despite his confident demeanour. He seemed to think that it might make Yuuri doubt him again. It was true that it was challenging to grasp the reality of Viktor's existence as being dependent on his barely defined _connection_ to other people.

"I see," he said. Ignoring the helpless confusion in his mind was easier when he focused on the fact that Viktor still seemed to want to talk to him, despite his rudeness.

"Can I come to the rink again?" Viktor asked with a guarded expression.

"If you want," Yuuri said, and Viktor smiled.

 

On their way to the rink the next day, Yuuri found himself in a situation even more bizarre than anything that had come before. Phichit introduced himself to Viktor, who was still invisible and inaudible to him, and Yuuri had to play translator, or rather relay, for Viktor's part of the conversation. It felt strange to walk with Phichit on his right and Viktor on his left, repeating what Viktor said for Phichit to hear, but it also felt good in a way he could not have anticipated. The excited smile on Viktor's face alone would have been enough to convince Yuuri that this was the right thing to do. The conversation was slow because everything Viktor said had to be repeated, but no one seemed to mind, and Yuuri could see how happy it was making Viktor to be able to speak to Phichit.

They stopped talking when they reached the rink. This way of communicating they had quickly come up with on the spot that morning was something that would have to stay between the three of them. They all agreed that Viktor's existence was not something they should advertise. Yuuri and Phichit greeted Celestino as they always did, and started doing laps to warm up while Viktor leaned against the barrier and watched.

Yuuri worked on his free skate as much as he could. The choreography was finally starting to come together, and he felt an enormous sense of relief at knowing that at least one program was more or less solid. He vowed not to think about the short program until the weekend, when he would do nothing but concentrate on that particular problem, until he had found both a piece of music he liked, and a theme for the coming season.

Whenever he looked over to where Viktor was standing, he was turned in his direction, apparently watching him closely. It made him nervous, now that he knew that it was actually the real Viktor who was following him with his eyes. At the same time, he felt that he was slowly getting to know Viktor, and he didn't feel threatened by being observed by him like this. It motivated him to do his best and focus on every single jump, every new step combination he and Celestino were working into the choreography. He wondered if Viktor could still skate and if it would be rude to ask. If he couldn't, surely it would be rubbing salt into a wound, and the last thing he wanted was to hurt Viktor more than he already had. Perhaps the topic would come up naturally at some point. For now, Yuuri did not dare hope that he might see Viktor skate again one day.

Seeing Viktor's face after training, closer now that he had stepped off the ice, it was clear that Viktor _wanted_ to skate. They were always at the rink in the dreams, and lately, when the dream had diverted from the memory of his death, Viktor had stood on the ice in dress shoes, unable to move. But things had changed now, hadn't they? Was Yuuri believing him enough to make Viktor feel less lonely, less like he was stuck somewhere between here and there? Yuuri wanted it to be, or at least to be the beginning of something that would make Viktor feel better. He could see that he was still drawn to the ice. There was a longing in his eyes, that Yuuri was sure Viktor was trying to hide behind that bright smile of his. There was so much sadness in Viktor that Yuuri had caught glimpses of in the few conversations they had had, and it made Yuuri ache to see him try to hide it. He wanted to look at Viktor and see him smile as he sometimes did, warm and genuine, and he wanted for the pain and the sadness to be gone.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mention of suicidal (?) thoughts/death wish
> 
>  
> 
> So, hello again! I've finally managed to finish this chapter. It took me sooo long - they sure like to keep me busy at uni!  
> Thanks to those who are still reading this, even if it's taking me ages to write new chapters! Please leave a comment and let me  
> know what you think! I'm desperate to know what people think of the new "developments" :D


	7. Be debonair! Be debonair!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter! Tiny warning in the end notes again.
> 
> Chapter title from Emily Dickinson's "Poor little heart".

 

 

"No, I'm fine, really. No more hallucinations." Yuuri tried his best to look earnest, as if he had nothing to hide. Dr. Cooper was observing him over the edge of her glasses. She did not seem fully convinced, despite the fact that he had been carefully building up to this. During their first meeting after Yuuri finally accepted that Viktor was as real as he had always claimed to be, Yuuri had told his therapist that he was having fewer nightmares. This was true and Yuuri felt very little shame when, during their next session, he lied and reported having seen Viktor only three times that week. Telling her that he had not seen him at all was only the next logical step, and Yuuri could not muster any feelings of guilt at the lie.

In fact, Viktor had spent almost every waking moment with him. Since his brief conversation with Chris, Yuuri's initial shock and guilt at his behaviour towards Viktor had turned into the realisation that he was ridiculously lucky. There had been no hope of ever meeting Viktor before, but for some reason that neither of them understood, Viktor had entered his life like a room in a house he had previously overlooked. Yuuri was still hesitant to ask Viktor about his past as a figure skating legend. He didn't want to remind him of what he had lost and could never have again. Viktor, on the other hand, seemed to feel the need to find out as much as he could about Yuuri. He liked to ask him questions out of the blue, ranging from "what's your favourite colour?" to "have you ever been in love?", which made Yuuri splutter, flush, and stammer a "no" that seemed to amuse Viktor a great deal.

Phichit had taken to greeting Viktor in the mornings, despite the fact that he still couldn't see him. He normally looked in the wrong direction when speaking to Viktor but given the circumstances, neither Yuuri nor Viktor ever mentioned it. The way that Phichit had simply accepted the fact that he was now essentially living with a ghost that he could neither see nor hear, bordered on the kind of insanity Yuuri had, for weeks, felt uncannily close to. All Phichit had done was make Viktor swear that he would never intentionally spook him in any way, or follow him into the bathroom. Viktor only laughed and assured Phichit that, while he liked him very much, he had no intense desire to watch him take a shower. Yuuri wasn't sure what made him more uncomfortable - the idea of Viktor watching Phichit shower, or the fact that the conversation, as usual, was conducted through him.

During training, Viktor watched Yuuri intently and sometimes, and always carefully, offered advice. They fell into an easy day-to-day routine and Yuuri began to realise that he was getting used to having Viktor around. He also noticed that Viktor was changing, ever so slightly, and not in a way Yuuri could have described to anyone. It was as if Viktor was becoming more real by the day. He himself had said he was more "solid" now that Yuuri believed that he was really there, but that seemed like an only marginally adequate description of what was happening. It was true that Viktor's appearance was no longer fluctuating between his older and younger self. He smiled more often, even if, at times, his smiles still looked just a little too bright to be truly genuine. But none of these things were the main reason why Yuuri thought of Viktor as changed.

One night, when Yuuri lay in bed unable to fall asleep, thoughts whirling through his brain aimlessly, the one thing that stuck out to him was the way Viktor sometimes looked at him. It was a specific expression on Viktor's face that seemed to be swimming through the darkness now, like seaweed caught in a net. His head slightly tilted to the side, and his eyes focused entirely on Yuuri as if he was as much of a puzzle to him as Viktor was to Yuuri.

 

One day after training, Yuuri sat at his desk, tired and frustrated, and tried to work out a choreography for his short program. He had picked a piece of music two weeks earlier but no matter how long he thought about it, the pretty music wouldn't turn into a story in his mind. He knew that, in theory, a story was optional. Not every figure skater worked with a narrative they tried to convey on the ice, but Yuuri had always found it easier to skate when there was a story, or at least a strong feeling, that ran through his performance. The song he had picked in a desperate attempt to finally find something was nice enough, a melancholic piece that had the potential to tug at the heartstrings. If only Yuuri knew how to play to that potential. He had tried improvising to the music but something was always missing. Now he had sat down with the earnest intention to take a more technical approach and nail down a choreography on paper.

When, after an hour of rather unsuccessful planning, Yuuri stood up with a frustrated groan to go to the kitchen and make himself a cup of tea, Viktor was sitting on the living room sofa. He looked up from the book he was reading when Yuuri entered the room and put the book to the side.

"Are you alright?" he asked, sitting up straighter. Something of Yuuri's frustration must have been clearly visible on his face. He shrugged, a little embarrassed to admit to having a problem that Viktor must have overcome when he had been half Yuuri's age.

"The short program choreography is just not coming together at all," he said with a non-committal shrug, and disappeared into the kitchen. Viktor did not follow him, giving Yuuri a few minutes to think while he waited for the tea to brew. When he returned to the living room, Viktor was still there.

"Can we talk?" he asked and Yuuri nodded. He had sworn to himself to never deny Viktor a conversation again, unless he had a very good reason for it. He sat next to him on the sofa and watched the steam rising from his mug, aware that Viktor was looking at him.

"I think I might have a solution for you," Viktor said after a while.

"You do?"

"I was helping Yura with his programs and there is one we didn't end up using. I think it would suit you."

Viktor's eyes were shimmering with excitement, but Yuuri was not sure if he could accept the offer.

"I don't know," he said hesitantly. "I wouldn't want to steal your program ideas. Or Plisetsky's."

"Can I show you the music?"

Yuuri sighed and nodded, and Viktor followed him to his room where he leaned over his desk and typed slowly.

"This is getting easier for you," Yuuri noted, commenting on Viktor operating the keyboard. Viktor did not reply. He seemed to be concentrating. After about a minute, music poured from the laptop's speakers and filled the room. Yuuri listened intently, allowing the music to flood over him despite the less than ideal sound quality of the speakers. It was a fast-paced piece, very different from the one he had been working on. He closed his eyes, and images started blossoming inside his mind, accompanying the music: fluid motions of limbs and bodies, dancing around each other. When the music ended he opened his eyes and saw Viktor looking at him again.

"It's called _Eros_ ," Viktor said, watching for Yuuri's reaction. Yuuri did his best to keep his face neutral. "Eros was a Greek god of love, sexual love specifically," Viktor continued. "You can tell from the music, can't you? I have the program fully choreographed. I meant it when I said you could win the Grand Prix, especially with this program."

"You... that - that was in a dream!" Yuuri stammered, blushing hard. He remembered only too well how Viktor had spoken to him for the first time in the recurring dream, telling him that he could win, that he wanted to see him win.

Viktor chuckled. "It was, but I stand by it. You can win and I want you to. Take the program, and my advice, and you will." He winked - actually winked - and grinned. Yuuri felt strangely weak in the knees, as if he had just returned from an overly long run. He sat on his bed, and thought about it.

_Eros_. That was a problem. He cleared his throat.

"Uhm, thank you for the offer, but I don't think I can skate to this song."

"Why not?" Viktor asked immediately.

"It's... as you said, it's... _Eros_. That's not really my - uh, my speciality."

"You do want to win, right?"

"Uhm, yeah?"

"Then you need to surprise the audience. Doing a program no one expects from you is exactly the right thing to do if you want their attention. If you can surprise them, you've got them. I would say that makes _Eros_ ideal for you!" There was an expression on Viktor's face that made it very clear that he did not believe anyone could say anything against the logic in his argument. He was right to a degree, Yuuri thought. Surprising the audience and the jury would surely help him stand out. On the other hand, Viktor wanted Yuuri to skate a program based around sexual love, and Yuuri did not feel qualified in the least.

"I'll think about it," he said.

Viktor nodded. "Do that. If you think your other program is better, by all means, skate that one. But if you don't, I'd be happy to help you with this one."

 

Viktor did not bring up the topic again for several days but Yuuri knew that it was only a matter of time. He kept lying to Dr. Cooper but did not feel the least bit guilty about it. She was slowly starting to believe him, and he really was feeling better than before. The nightmares had stopped. Viktor still appeared in his dreams every now and then, but only as fleeting images that, Yuuri reasoned, were more connected to their daily interactions than the memory of his death. Still, coming to terms with Viktor being real did not serve as a magical cure for all of Yuuri's mental health problems. He no longer had to worry about hallucinations, which felt like a heavy weight being lifted off his shoulders, but his other problems remained.

He was made abundantly aware of this one evening when training had ended, and he was the last person left on the ice. Celestino had persuaded the rink's management to let Yuuri and Phichit stay after hours, as long as they announced it early on and left when whoever was in charge of locking up needed to go home. Yuuri stayed after training that day, determined to perfect a step sequence in his free skate program. Viktor was watching from the stands, a quiet presence in Yuuri's peripheral vision as he spun across the ice, repeating the same piece of choreography over and over. Everything was going well enough, he felt that he was making progress, which felt good.

After a while, and he didn't know why, he noticed that he was breathing harder than he should, even after numerous repetitions of the step sequence. His chest felt constricted, as if someone had wrapped a broad belt around his rib cage and was pulling it tight. At first he thought he might just need a break and he turned towards the gap in the barrier. He was feeling slightly nauseated now, and he leaned heavily on the barrier before sitting down on the nearest bench. He did not want Viktor to see him like this, shaking and gasping for air for no particular reason other than that some part of his mind had decided that the day had been going too well for him. A quick glance informed him that Viktor had abandoned the spot from which he had been watching, and was walking towards Yuuri. He had to make sure Viktor wouldn't see what was going on. There wasn't enough air but Yuuri had to breath normally so that Viktor wouldn't notice. He felt Viktor sitting down next to him and felt like he was choking. His hands were clenched into fists in his lap, his fingernails cutting into his palms painfully, and he wondered if Viktor could see the tension in his arms and hands.

"Yuuri?" Viktor said. "What's wrong?"

Yuuri shook his head. "Nothing," he managed, teeth clenched around the word.

"You're shaking," Viktor observed, and Yuuri let a few panting breaths escape through his mouth, in lieu of laughter.

"No shit," he spat, and immediately felt guilty for being mean to Viktor. It was impossible to control his breathing now, and Viktor must think him a freak, and a rude one, anyway, so where was the point in pretending?

"Yuuri?"

It was too much. He tried covering his face with his hands and when that didn't help he slumped forward, elbows on knees, head between his arms.

"Yuuri, calm down!" Viktor said, and suddenly Yuuri could feel the weight of his hand on his shoulder. In that moment, it was unbearable to be touched.

"Don't-" he gasped, "don't touch me!" Viktor's hand disappeared immediately.

"I'm sorry!" he said, and Yuuri could hear he was worried. Viktor was the last person who should worry about Yuuri. There was a sharp pain in Yuuri's chest, like a large shard of glass, that he had to breathe around.

"What can I do?" Viktor asked. "I don't think I'm good in these situations."

"Talk." Yuuri was too focused on the pain and the breathing to say more.

"About what?"

"Anything."

"Alright." There was a moment's pause before Viktor continued. "I don't know what's happening and it's scary. I can see you're in pain but I don't think it's physical, or not only."

Yuuri wanted to yell at him, make him stop talking about this. Why couldn't he just talk about anything _else_ \- anything at all?

"Actually, I'm feeling really scared now," Viktor went on. His voice was quieter now. "Breathing feels strange. It's more of a conscious effort than usual. You know, I had this with Chris, too. You're feeling something very strongly, and I feel a part of it, like an echo."

Yuuri was horrified by this revelation. He felt more naked than he could have with his clothes off. Viktor was deeper in his mind than he had realised. How could he keep the extent of his problems secret from him if he was inevitably attuned to Yuuri's strange moods?

"I think I'm not doing a good job here," Viktor said. "You're not feeling better, are you?"

Yuuri shook his head. The shivering had mostly stopped and breathing was getting easier again, but there was a chaos in his head that made him feel like he might throw up.

"I'm sorry I'm so bad at this," Viktor said. "You know, I had all these ideas and fantasies about helping you with the short program but I don't know how to handle this. I thought I could be something like a second coach to you, and I still want that. But it's good that you have Celestino as well. I'm not good with other people's feelings - or my own for that matter. I've been thinking about what I should do while I'm here. The truth is, I don't want to be useless to you. I want to contribute something, and skating is the only thing I've ever been good at, so if I could just help you with that... then I wouldn't be just this literal dead weight. I wasn't going to tell you all of this but I thought maybe it helps you to hear it. I don't know what your thoughts are on me being around, if you even want us to be, I don't know, friends or colleagues or... You're just stuck with me for a while and there's nothing we can do about it, but I wish you could like me despite it all."

It was strange, listening to Viktor speaking about his worries and insecurities. The idea of someone like him being insecure about anything at all seemed wrong. Yuuri had known that Viktor was unhappy with his situation, trapped in an in-between state and dependent on others. Sometimes Viktor disappeared for hours on end and Yuuri didn't know where he went, and sometimes he sat on the sofa, staring into nothingness until Yuuri said something to him. Yuuri had thought that all that was nothing more than a natural reaction to Viktor's situation. Hearing Viktor talk now made him think, for the first time, that maybe a part of Viktor had always been like this - unsure of what others thought of him, and somehow sad on a deep-down level Yuuri could not fully grasp. It actually helped to hear those things from him. The chaos in his mind slowed down, the pain ebbed away.

"Yes," he said after a while.  
"Yes?" Viktor asked, confused.

Yuuri felt like he could lift his head now, but he kept it between his arms a little longer to hide his face. "Yes, I like you, and I don't think you're dead weight. I can't believe you want to help coach me, that's crazy, I might actually win if you do."

"Oh," Viktor said, sounding relieved.

"And I want you to not be so sad all the time," Yuuri added. "I want that gone."

"Oh," Viktor said again, but his voice sounded hollow this time. Yuuri looked up between his arms just in time to see Viktor turn his head away.

"No - I don't mean that you need to cheer up or something," he explained, hoping that Viktor would understand. "What I mean is that I've seen you die and do nothing, you've said - I know those dreams have stopped but I also know that just because I don't see it anymore that doesn't mean it's not an issue anymore. You're still sad, even if you hide it, and I want... I want to take that away from you."

"That's sweet," Viktor said. "But I can't promise I'll be happy all the time from now on."

"I know. That's alright. We both have some issues, I guess."

Viktor actually laughed at that. "If you can call being dead an issue. Can I show you your short program now?"

Yuuri's head shot up so fast he hurt his neck. "What?! I mean, yes! Yes, of course!"

Viktor shot him an amused glance before he stood up and walked towards the ice.

"Would you put the music on?" he asked, as if this was something they did every day.

"Uh, yeah," Yuuri croaked. He wasn't sure if it was shock or excitement that was failing his voice. He had been wondering if Viktor could still skate but had pushed the thought to the back of his mind. When Viktor had offered to help him with the short program choreography, Yuuri had imagined him calling out instructions from the stands. But now Viktor was standing on the ice, and when Yuuri's looked to his feet, he saw that Viktor was wearing skates. He had never asked how it worked, but part of Viktor's condition seemed to be that he could change the clothes he was wearing in an instant. Possibly this was due to the fact that his clothes were no more physical than his body, which was why they could change form as easily as his hair - but this was hardly the time to think about that.

Yuuri hurried to find the _Eros_ music on his phone. Viktor was in position at the rink's centre, arms at his sides, eyes closed. Yuuri pressed play. Viktor began to dance and everything else was swept from Yuuri's mind. It had been so, so long since he had last seen Viktor perform in person. No video on the internet could ever do the real thing justice. His movements were controlled to perfection but far from the sterile meaninglessness some skaters fell into when their skating was disconnected from the music. Viktor took the music and painted it onto the ice, jumps and step sequences flowing seamlessly into each other. Yuuri had stood up and was leaning on the barrier, his eyes fixed on Viktor with undivided attention. Viktor had explained that _Eros_ meant sexual love, and Yuuri could see that very clearly now. His face felt hot in the cold air as he watched Viktor perform for his eyes only. He was - and Yuuri was embarrassed at the thought - the embodiment of seduction.

The song ended, too soon and too suddenly, and Viktor came to a stop in a final pose, arms slung around himself in a solitary embrace, breathing heavily, and looking directly at Yuuri.

"Got everything?" he asked casually, and skated over to Yuuri.

"Uhm," Yuuri said.

"Which quads can you land?"

"The, uh, the toe loop and the Salchow... sometimes."

"Good," Viktor said. "We'll work on the rest. I'll demonstrate again and then you have a go. Sound good?"

Yuuri nodded. The realisation had just hit him that Viktor was expecting him to copy this routine and somehow convey that same sense of sexuality, desire, seduction. How on earth was he supposed to do that? He had always thought of these things as being private, to be kept to oneself, possibly shared with a partner, but definitely not to be displayed in front of thousands of people. _It's just an act_ , Yuuri tried to remind himself but it did little to calm his nerves. He was familiar with portraying emotions and ideas on the ice, from serenity to wild determination. This was different. People following his every move on the ice while he wore skin-tight costumes was nothing new to him, but he felt like he might only be comfortable skating this program in a snowsuit.

Viktor had made it look easy, his face perfectly matching the emotions he had expressed with his body. The mental image of Yuuri trying to make _his_ face look like that made him cringe. He would have to practice in a mirror and that would be horrible. Checking his movements for the smallest mistakes in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors of ballet studios was something he normally no longer thought of as strange or unsettling but again, this was different somehow. Still, he knew that he should not complain about feeling uncomfortable, so he kept his mouth shut. All he needed was to figure out a way to overcome his intense embarrassment at the thought of attempting to copy that routine - and quickly.

 

Yuuri tried not to let on how anxious he felt about the _Eros_ program, and Viktor did not bring up the topic for the rest of the day. In the back of his mind Yuuri knew that he could still work on his first idea and assemble a passable choreography. It was clear enough though, that he would not win anything with that, least of all gold at the Final. The idea of the shiny, golden medal hanging around his neck was perhaps the best motivation to force himself to try, no - _master_ , the _Eros_ routine.

Falling asleep was difficult that night. Over and over he imagined himself skating the program Viktor had shown him. He wished he could stop thinking about it, but something in his mind made him go through the routine again and again, his mental image of the skater on the ice switching back and forth between himself and Viktor. It was really Viktor who should be competing with this program. He was the one who had picked the music, worked out the choreography, and brought it to the ice. But Viktor could never compete again. Yuuri could. And Viktor had asked him to use the program. That was all there was to it, in the end. Viktor had asked, and Yuuri would not deny him the chance to see his choreography performed in competition. He would figure out _Eros_ , no matter how embarrassed he felt, and he would win because Viktor deserved to see his work rewarded with gold, even if he was not the one presenting it to the world.

At some point, while his thoughts kept swirling through his head in unorganised patterns, Yuuri drifted off into sleep. It took him a moment to realise that he was dreaming, and when he did he was surprised. He was at the rink in St. Petersburg once again, and Viktor was practising his old program. Yuuri watched, torn between confusion and appreciation. He had assumed that the dreams had stopped for good, but he could not deny that he enjoyed seeing Viktor lost in concentration on the ice again. For a while he watched, feeling relaxed. He was sure that this was nothing more than a memory, played out for him once more.

Before he could begin to worry about the dream's end, he blinked and suddenly Viktor's hair was short and he was wearing a black competition costume that Yuuri seemed to vaguely remember. Yuuri recognised the _Eros_ routine immediately, and just like that afternoon he was stunned by the performance. The costume added something to it that Yuuri could not quite name. His eyes were irresistibly drawn to the figure on the ice and he would have been content to keep watching as Viktor repeated the afternoon's presentation.

Then he found himself suddenly on the ice, the dream taking a new turn. The music was loud and seemed to echo off of the ice itself, and Viktor stretched out a hand towards him. Yuuri took it without hesitation, and Viktor moved into his space, pulling Yuuri closer until they were chest to chest. Viktor smiled warmly, but there was something burning in his eyes, and he slung his arms around Yuuri. Yuuri was momentarily confused - somehow he had thought they would skate together, maybe so that Viktor could demonstrate some part of the choreography more effectively, but now they were too close to skate. Viktor's hands were moving up and down his back, and Yuuri stared at him like a deer caught in the headlights but couldn't stop himself from returning the gesture. He leaned his head against Viktor's shoulder and wrapped his arms around him as tightly as he could, afraid that Viktor would dissolve into nothingness otherwise. Viktor did not disappear. Yuuri could feel Viktor's cold fingers at the back of his neck and then Viktor shifted slightly, and replaced his fingers with his mouth.

 

Yuuri awoke so suddenly that it felt like a slap in the face. Without thinking, he grabbed at his neck where moments before, Viktor had kissed him, leaving a hot sensation there, like an after-image.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: yet another panic attack
> 
> Soooo what do you think? The Eros struggle is real.  
> Thank you for reading! Please comment with whatever thoughts you have :)


	8. A death-blow is a life-blow to some

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An apology for the late update and a small content warning in the endnotes.
> 
> Chapter title from Emily Dickinson's poem of the same name.

 

 

The rink in St. Petersburg again - Viktor was skating to _Eros_ , and Yuuri wondered why this was happening again. He had thought about the previous night's dream all day, trying to puzzle out what it meant. Viktor had behaved normally throughout the day, which made Yuuri hopeful that they had not shared that particular dream. He tried telling himself that nothing overly noteworthy had really happened. They had hugged - nothing strange about that - and Viktor had kissed his neck. Or had he? Once Yuuri had woken up he wasn't so sure about that anymore. It might have just been his imagination. It had been a dream, after all.

And now he was back, in what looked very much like the same dream, and Viktor was skating _Eros_ again. He paid Yuuri no attention, and Yuuri was thankful for it. The music was loud and he found that he could not think clearly.

He could feel himself falling deeper into the dream. His worries and frantic thoughts were swept aside and seemed unimportant for now. What was important was the music, and Viktor moving to it. Yuuri felt his eyes following Viktor automatically, and he knew that he was skating for him to see. Nobody else could see this, it was only for Yuuri, and he wanted it to never end. Viktor was skating, and somehow Yuuri could see him more clearly than when he was awake. Yuuri could not have said how long he was watching Viktor skate. Somewhere deep down he knew that the program was only a couple of minutes long, but it felt longer now, and when the music stopped, Viktor held the final pose for only a moment before stepping out of it and skating to where Yuuri was leaning against the barrier.

He would have crashed right into Yuuri if it wasn't for the barrier, but Yuuri didn't flinch or move even one centimetre. A strand of Viktor's fringe was stuck to his forehead, and Yuuri reached out to brush it aside. He let his hand follow the shape of Viktor's face, tracing his jaw with his fingers. A fleeting thought reminded him that he would never do this if he was awake, but this was a dream, inconsequential in the light of day, and he wanted this now, just once, and secretly enjoy the feeling of touching something that seemed somehow out of bounds. Viktor kept his eyes fixed on Yuuri, observing him closely. He slowly leaned forwards over the barrier, and for a moment Yuuri wondered how far he would go, but he got his answer the next moment, when Viktor closed the distance between them and kissed him. For a second, Yuuri felt frozen to the spot, before he threw caution to the wind and kissed back.

Viktor's lips on his felt so real that Yuuri wasn't sure he was dreaming anymore. He held on to the back of Viktor's neck, like Viktor had done with him the night before, and pulled him closer. There was a sense of urgency in the air, and Yuuri was determined to get as much of Viktor as he could before he would inevitably wake up. Viktor changed the angle of his head, and the kiss was deeper now. Yuuri opened his mouth instinctively, and he felt Viktor's tongue lick over his lips and into his mouth. Viktor's hands were in his hair and on his face, and all Yuuri could do was struggle to pull Viktor ever closer. His disappointment when Viktor broke the kiss and let go of him was almost painful.

"Wait," Viktor said in a low voice, and before Yuuri could ask what for, Viktor pushed off of the barrier and skated towards the exit, and Yuuri understood. He hurried to meet him halfway, and as soon as Viktor had stepped off the ice, he took hold of both of Yuuri's arms and pushed him backwards. His back hit the barrier and he was beyond glad that it was no longer between them. Viktor kissed him again, and Yuuri let his hands wander over his back, silently thanking whoever had designed Viktor's skin-tight costume. He could feel his shoulder blades through it, the curve of his spine, and the expansion of his ribcage with every breath. He could feel Viktor shiver when he kissed the corner of his mouth and nipped at his jaw, and an echo of the _Eros_ piece seemed to reverberate in Yuuri's head. Viktor leaned his head back, giving Yuuri better access to his neck, and he didn't hesitate to take advantage of it, alternating between soft kisses and increasingly daring bites at the soft skin there.

Viktor shifted his weight, and Yuuri felt him raise one leg, briefly wondering what for. Then he felt the press of Viktor's knee between his thighs and he gasped involuntarily, overwhelmed with sensation. This was undoubtedly the best dream he'd ever had and -

 

_CRASH!_

 

Once again Yuuri woke up with a jolt, and he cursed under his breath at the realisation that the dream was over and gone. The loud noise that had woken him up seemed to have come from the living room or the kitchen, and he got up unwillingly, to see what was going on. Viktor was awake, too, getting up from the sofa and throwing a glance at Yuuri that he decided to ignore. If Viktor could somehow read Yuuri's thoughts on his face or, worse, sense his frustration like he had felt an echo of his panic attack, Yuuri was not going to acknowledge it and make it more embarrassing.

"Sorry, did I wake you up?" Phichit asked when Yuuri peered into the kitchen. Phichit was kneeling on the floor, sweeping the shattered remnants of a mug onto a dustpan.

"It's alright," Yuuri said, even though it really wasn't. "Are you hurt?" he asked, and Phichit shook his head.

"I'm sorry, I'm just having an overly clumsy day," Phichit said. "Is Viktor here, too?"

Yuuri nodded and pointed next to the fridge, where Viktor was standing.

"Sorry to wake you up, Viktor," Phichit said in his general direction. Viktor shrugged, and looked at Yuuri as if to see what the proper response to this situation was. Yuuri shrugged back, relieved that he could hold Viktor's gaze without blushing. Still, he would have to somehow subtly ask Viktor if he had shared any of his dreams recently, and hope that he wouldn't want to know why.

"I guess I'll go back to bed," he said and left, wishing the other two a good night.

Once he closed his bedroom door behind him, he let himself fall onto the bed with a groan of frustration. Talking to Viktor the next day would be a tour de force of awkwardness, and he was not looking forward to it. If Viktor _had_ shared the dream, Yuuri would simply die of embarrassment. What had he been thinking? He had hoped that confusing dreams about Viktor were a thing of the past, and now this. Maybe he was reading the dream all wrong. Maybe he was remembering it wrong. Had it really been more than a friendly hug? It had been a dream after all, things got blown out of proportion and were not always easy to reconstruct after waking up. This might just be his tendency to overthink things acting up again.

A lightning-like memory of Viktor's tongue on his lips made Yuuri want to bury his head under the pillow and never come back out. Denying it didn't help, not with those memories that felt much too real. He would have to add this to the growing list of things he would just have to figure out how to deal with.

 

The next morning, before they left for training, Yuuri took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself. Viktor was sitting across from him at the small kitchen table, reading the newspaper while Yuuri had breakfast. Aiming for a casual voice, Yuuri asked: "You haven't been in any of my dreams recently, right? I mean shared my dreams?"

Viktor looked up from the paper. Yuuri was struck with how normal it seemed - just two people having a conversation over the breakfast table. One could almost forget that only one of them was technically alive.

"Why?" Viktor asked. "Have I been dying again?"

"No. I'm just curious. I mean, you're in some of my dreams, but I guess that's just because we spend a lot of time together. So I was wondering if you have the same dreams, even when they're not your memory, you know?"

Viktor nodded, but didn't answer right away. He seemed to be searching for something in Yuuri's expression, and Yuuri clenched his fists under the table, scared that Viktor might see straight through the facade he was putting up.

"No," Viktor said finally. "Not that I can recall. But let me know if you have any disturbing dreams, alright?"

"Okay," Yuuri said, wondering to himself if the previous night's dream counted as disturbing.

 

The rest of the week passed without incident, and Yuuri was more than a little thankful. He was training hard for the Chugoku, Shokoku and Kyushu Championship in September now, and couldn't afford any distractions. Celestino's reaction to Yuuri's decision to perform to _Eros_ was a mixture of confusion and relief.

"I'm glad that you've made a decision," he said, his forehead furrowed. "But are you comfortable with this? I was under the impression that sex-appeal was not something you wanted to make use of. May I ask how you came up with this idea? And you've got the entire choreography planned out already?" Celestino listened to Yuuri's stammered explanation about a sudden strike of inspiration with an unreadable expression, while Phichit was doubling over with silent laughter behind his back. Yuuri had told Phichit all about Viktor's insistence on him using his program. He had admitted that, after he had seen Viktor perform it for him, he would have agreed to almost anything, but he had not mentioned the dreams he'd had following this decision. If Phichit knew that, even days later, Yuuri was sometimes unexpectedly hit with a memory from those dreams, he might just die of laughter.

Viktor had begun coaching him, alongside Celestino, which occasionally led to confusion when they contradicted each other in their advice. Since Celestino had no idea that he was sharing his job with someone who might have been a ghost, however, Yuuri made sure to let Viktor know early on that Celestino's coaching would have to take priority. It was hard enough to explain how and when he had come up with an entire new choreography that wasn't exactly in line with his previous style, and Yuuri felt like Celestino might seriously doubt that his mental health was improving if he told him about Viktor's growing influence on his skating.

Viktor took his place in the second row with grace, never complaining about it. Yuuri could sense that, if Viktor was his primary coach, his training would look slightly different, but Viktor held back all criticism he might have had about Celestino's coaching style. He seemed to understand that the best way to help Yuuri was to add to what Celestino was doing, giving Yuuri helpful tips that could only come from someone who'd had a career as successful as Viktor's. His approach to skating was slightly different than Celestino's, although Yuuri found it hard to put this difference into words. Both had a keen eye for technical imperfections and kinks in the choreography that needed smoothing out.

Unlike Celestino, however, Viktor liked to demonstrate. The problem with that was that whenever he did show him exactly what he envisioned for a specific section of the choreography, Yuuri simply had to look, which seemed to give him a rather spaced-out appearance. After Celestino had asked him for the third time if Yuuri had gotten enough sleep the night before, Yuuri had to put his foot down and ban Viktor from the ice during normal training.

They stayed at the rink most evenings, going through Viktor's notes for the day. Viktor liked to call attention to minute movements of specific muscle groups, and often asked Yuuri to pay attention to the details he pointed out when he demonstrated a jump Yuuri was struggling with.

"Focus only on the arms this time, disregard the legs," he would say, launching into yet another perfectly executed quad toe loop. In most cases, Yuuri found these exercises helpful. He would watch Viktor demonstrate, paying attention to what Viktor had told him to, and then he would replicate what he had seen. The progress he was making was exhilarating, especially when it came to jumps, which had never been his strength.

To his relief, there had been no more strange dreams. Of course Viktor was still very present in his dreams, but in a less real and coherent way. Most of the time Yuuri just saw him repeating elements of the choreography they had been working on that day, or executing a series of flawless jumps. Once or twice, however, Yuuri felt as if Viktor knew exactly that he was still thinking and worrying about a possible reprise of the dream in which they had kissed. Viktor would throw him the occasional glance that made Yuuri wonder what was going on in his mind, and if he himself was more transparent than he wanted to be. If he was, then Viktor was truly having a field day with it when he told Yuuri to "focus on my glutes this time, Yuuri, really pay attention!"

There was simply no way that Viktor did not notice the heavy flush on Yuuri's face but there was nothing Yuuri could do about it. He was very aware of Viktor's smirk as he accelerated to launch himself into a triple Lutz, tripe loop combination. Of course there were perfectly good reasons to focus on specific muscle groups, but Yuuri found it hard to concentrate when Viktor had essentially just told him to focus his attention on his ass.

 

Hours later Yuuri awoke from fitful sleep, sweating and feeling panicky. His dream had been a looping repetition of Viktor's insistence that Yuuri focus on his glutes, and Yuuri had felt more and more cornered, as various instincts seemed to pull him in different directions. Of course there was the professional desire to understand, to be able to follow Viktor's instructions to the point. Then there was the impulse to look that could only stem from some primitive need that was sizzling somewhere deep inside him, like a small fire. More than anything else, he wanted to run and somehow escape the situation. All he could do when he woke up was to sigh and hope that Viktor would focus on something else that day.

Luckily, Viktor did just that, and even if Yuuri had been someone who was prone to complaining, he wouldn't have lost a single word about the drills Viktor had him do that evening. It was exhausting, and successfully kept Yuuri's mind occupied with skating and nothing else. He could, however, not avoid noticing the way Viktor moved when he skated, using his body to paint a picture so beautiful Yuuri still couldn't quite believe that what he was seeing was real. Even when Viktor stood still, critically assessing Yuuri's progress from the sidelines, Yuuri couldn't help but sneak the occasional glance at him. At first he told himself it was only to gauge Viktor's reactions to his jumps, but it became increasingly obvious to him that he looked simply because he wanted to.

 

As spring turned into summer it got warmer outside, and in late July Yuuri was close to convincing himself that his repeated waking up drenched in sweat was a result of the temperature outside his window, rather than what was going on inside his mind when he closed his eyes. The dreams he was having now were so much better than the endless repetitions of Viktor dying, but they still weighed on him. Initially, he had hoped the dreams would stop, just like Viktor's memories had stopped plaguing him in his sleep. But weeks after Viktor first kissed him in the safe deniability of a dream, Yuuri finally had to admit to himself that he actually looked forward to going to sleep now, if it meant that he would get to wrap himself around Viktor's body again and feel his pulse through the skin of his neck.

Sometimes he believed that Viktor knew exactly what he tried to force himself not to think about while he watched him skate. There was an unsettling smirk that played across his face every so often, making his eyes sparkle, and turning Yuuri into a flustered mess. Part of him wanted to ask again if Viktor really wasn't sharing his dreams, but he was scared of the answer either way. Surely, Viktor would have said something if Yuuri's dreams weren't entirely private anymore.

Yuuri managed to concentrate on skating and to his surprise, won first place at the Chugoku, Shokoku and Kyushu Championship. Celestino praised him for his progress and newly-found confidence, and once he had a moment of silence in his hotel room, Viktor pulled him into a tight hug, congratulating him on his win. It had been the first test of the season, the first time that he had presented his new programs to the world, and he had been nervous beyond words beforehand. The _Eros_ choreography was so unlike anything he had ever competed with before that he hadn't been sure how it would be received by the judges, and the free skate program felt equally personal, as if he was laying his soul bare on the ice.

It had been worth it, though, and now there was nothing standing in the way of international competitions. When the assignments were announced, Yuuri felt a pinch of nervousness in his stomach - he would meet Chris at his first event, the Cup of China. Viktor would be able to go back to Switzerland with Chris, and if he would rather go to Russia with Yuri Plisetsky, he would not have to wait much longer, only until the Rostelecom Cup. Yuuri pushed the thought aside. The Cup of China was still weeks away, and there was much work to be done before then. His programs needed fine-tuning before they could be presented at such a high level of competition, and Yuuri was determined to prove himself to the international skating community after his failure the year before. Having both Celestino and his secret second coach at his side, he felt like the stars would not align for him like this again. He could feel Viktor's style in his own skating now, bleeding through in the details, adding a layer to his performance that allowed him to express new feelings on the ice.

 

On the evening before the first day of competition at the Cup of China, Yuuri stayed in his hotel room after returning from dinner with Phichit and Celestino. Phichit had gone on to explore the city, but Yuuri felt too nervous to focus on sight-seeing. He had thought Viktor would want to look for Chris as soon as he arrived in Beijing, but when Yuuri asked about it, Viktor shook his head.

"I don't know where he is staying, I'll see him tomorrow. Also, as your second coach I feel it is my duty to see to it that you're alright before the competition. How are you feeling?"

Yuuri was surprised that Viktor seemed to take his role as coach so seriously, especially since he could give him nothing in return, and he couldn't help but smile.

Even before the start of the competition, Viktor stuck to his side. He leaned against a nearby wall while Yuuri stretched, eyes always on him, but he stayed out of Celestino's way, leaving the coaching to him. Yuuri almost lost his balance when he saw Chris Giacometti coming towards him. They hadn't talked since Phichit had made Yuuri call him, but Yuuri still remembered how concerned Chris had been for Viktor. He had asked Yuuri to be nice to Viktor, and Yuuri wanted to believe that he had done his best to make Viktor feel welcome in Detroit. He hastily tried to think of something to say to Chris, something that would not seem suspicious to the other skaters and their coaches who were milling around the hallway. But Chris only nodded at him as he passed, as if there was nothing to connect them other than skating. Yuuri was sure that no one else noticed, but he saw Chris' eyes flash over to where Viktor was standing, and Viktor smiled and gave a small wave. It was as if they were colleagues who happened to run into each other in the office kitchen. He tried to indicate to Viktor that he didn't mind if he wanted to follow Chris, which was a difficult thing to do without making Celestino notice that something was going on. He cleared his throat and caught Viktor's eye, then looked over to where Chris was walking down the hall a few steps away, before returning his focus to stretching his legs.

"I'll talk to him later," Viktor said, and it took some effort not to look at him to see what the expression on his face was. Yuuri couldn't tell if it was a casual remark, or if Viktor wanted to go but felt obligated to stick with Yuuri for some reason or other.

Phichit was the first on the ice, and Yuuri made sure to catch his performance on one of the monitors in the skaters' area, while Celestino went with Phichit. He knew how important this program was for Phichit; he had wanted to use this piece of music for years. Yuuri couldn't count the number of times he had gotten it stuck in his head after training, and Phichit had a tendency to sing whatever songs he was working with in the shower. It was easy to see, even over the monitor, that Phichit was enjoying his performance, and the audience was enthusiastically clapping along as Phichit swirled across the ice.

"There's no need to be that nervous," Viktor said into his ear as the camera showed Phichit waiting for his score in the kiss and cry. Yuuri shuddered. He hadn't heard Viktor come up behind him. He couldn't say anything in response - there were too many people around. Viktor rested his hands on Yuuri's shoulders, easing the tension out of the muscles.

"Try to relax a little. You've got this, you've got everything you need. _Eros_ is about seduction, remember? And you have the power to seduce the entire audience. To seduce me."

Yuuri felt goosebumps creep up his spine, and Viktor's breath against his cheek. He nodded once, quickly, and made his way to the rink as the next skater began his performance.

This was it. His chance to prove to the world that he was no longer who he had been less than a year ago in Sochi. He could do this, he would show them all. There were people who trusted in his ability, and he would not disappoint them. And he wouldn't disappoint himself, either.

He felt the music in his bones, radiating through every inch of his body, and Viktor's voice seemed to echo in his mind: _Seduce me_. _Seduce me, seduce me_. He launched himself into the performance, fully aware of how his costume worked in his favour, directing the audience's eyes toward him. He held their attention, and for those few minutes on the ice, he wanted it.

The performance went better than he would have admitted to hoping, and when his score was announced, Celestino punched the air in celebration.

Watching the remaining three skaters was still stressful, but he no longer felt sick with nerves. Chris swerved across the ice in a far more exuberant display of sex-appeal than Yuuri would have ever dared, and he felt defeated for a moment when Phichit grinned in his direction. "Looks like you weren't the only one with that idea!"

Yuuri was too distracted by Viktor's hands on his shoulders to come up with a good response.

"His performance doesn't take anything away from yours," Viktor said quietly. "He is more daring, but you had us all enthralled."

"What's he saying?" Phichit asked.

"How do you know he's saying anything at all?"

"Your face. I can tell." He didn't seem to think that more of an explanation was needed. Viktor was quiet, and somehow Yuuri was glad that he couldn't see his face from where he was standing.

"He says not to worry," he relayed to Phichit.

"I said I was enthralled," Viktor corrected, and Yuuri could feel the heat in his cheeks.

"I'm sure that was all," Phichit said in a mocking tone.

"He says it was a good performance."

"Mm-hmm." Phichit laughed but thankfully changed the topic after that. "So, just to let you know, I'll beat you tomorrow."

"I believe you."

"Ah, come on, that's not how you reply to that!"

"Sorry. I'm tired." He turned so he could see Viktor, while still pretending to be talking to Phichit. "I'll head back to the hotel. You should go and find Chris."

Viktor nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"See you around," Phichit said. He and Viktor both laughed at the joke, and Viktor walked away, towards the changing rooms.

Getting to the hotel took far longer than Yuuri would have liked. He answered the same set of questions several times in a row, to satisfy the journalists, and was asked to pose for a myriad of photos. It wasn't as if he had never been through all of this before, but it still felt overwhelming, and he was truly grateful when Celestino showed him and Phichit to a taxi that took them to their quiet hotel rooms. Dinner was more a necessity than something Yuuri would have looked forward to, but at least Phichit and Celestino were good company, and they were both as tired as him. Falling into bed that night felt like a reward.

 

And there he was again, flying across the ice as the music sounded clear and loud, as if it was more than just a dream. Yuuri leaned against the barrier, allowing himself to unabashedly enjoy the view. Seeing Viktor on the ice in St. Petersburg had shifted from a nightmarish memory loop that wasn't his own, to a repeated fantasy that he could hardly get enough of. It seemed only fair. He'd endured the bad dreams, and now he was following his decision to be selfish. Any intention he might have had to try and suppress the dreams had abandoned him once he gave himself permission to just do what he wanted when his eyes were closed. The incredibly lifelike feeling of the dreams had been a horror beyond his imagination when he had been forced to see Viktor die over and over again, but now it felt like some gigantic pendulum had swung in the opposite direction. As if the universe was set on letting him see from the peaks of mountains he had so far only been able to guess at from the dark cold of the surrounding valleys.

Yuuri watched as Viktor finished the routine, and felt the now familiar rush of restless excitement and anticipation when Viktor abandoned his final pose and came towards him. He stepped off the ice and smiled at Yuuri in that knowing, amused way that the real, non-dream Viktor was unsettlingly good at replicating.

"Hey," Viktor said, stepping into Yuuri's space, leaning in close without touching.

"Hey yourself." Yuuri tipped onto his toes for that last tiny bit that it took to close the gap between them. They kissed slowly for a while, and Viktor hummed approvingly. Yuuri imagined kicking the part of his mind that wondered what it would be like to kiss the actual Viktor, and tangled his fingers in Viktor's hair to distract himself from the thought. He was standing with his back against the barrier again, and Viktor was pressing closer, fitting their bodies together, and Yuuri groaned into the kiss in a way that would have killed him with embarrassment had he been awake.

He would never have this for real, with the real Viktor who would never want this. It was getting harder to make these thoughts disappear. They pushed into his mind to remind him that none of this was anything at all. Years ago, just before Viktor had been murdered, a younger, less worried version of Yuuri had imagined what it would be like to kiss his idol. He had not allowed himself that fantasy often - he had been scared it would reduce him to a stuttering, blushing mess when he finally met him eye to eye. They would compete as equals, on the same ice, and the fact that Yuuri wanted to hold his hand and press their lips together would not distract him from that goal. Now Viktor was dead, but alive, present, but still unreachable in ways that nagged at Yuuri's mind.

He grabbed Viktor by the arms and turned them both around. Viktor made a surprised little noise, now that it was him who had the barrier in his back, but he didn't seem to dislike it. Yuuri had one hand still in Viktor's hair and wrapped the other arm around his back, shoving himself against him. Viktor kissed him again, open-mouthed, breathing fast. It wasn't enough. Yuuri put more of his weight on him and raised one leg, his knee against the barrier next to Viktor's hip. Viktor moved forward enough to let Yuuri hook his leg behind his back. He let both his hands glide down Yuuri's back, pulling him against him once they rested at his hips.

"Do you want me to lift you?" he asked, and his voice was unlike anything Yuuri had heard from him before, low and rough at the edges.

"Yeah," he managed.

Viktor bent down a little to get a tight grip on Yuuri's thighs and lifted him up so Yuuri practically sat in his lap. Yuuri had to lean down slightly to kiss him now, which was a whole new experience, and one he liked.

Would the real Viktor be able to hold him up like this?

Yuuri went for Viktor's neck and bit down, hard, to shake the thought from his mind.

"Aaah – Ouch!" Viktor almost dropped him and Yuuri didn't apologise, even though he knew he should.

It was all just too much. He'd thought it would be all right, that he could have these dreams for himself and just _enjoy_ , for once. But this wasn't his, not really. It shouldn't tear him apart like this, the knowledge that he would never have any of this while he was awake and Viktor was _Viktor_. He had thought that he could protect himself from the pain he suddenly felt, at the overwhelming realisation that the real Viktor could never want him, never have feelings beyond mild annoyance for him because he had to put up with him until he could go back to someone he actually liked.

Yuuri pushed against Viktor's shoulders. He had to get away, he had to wake up and never have this dream again.

"Let me down!" he said, and Viktor did, instantly.

"I'm sorry!" Viktor looked distressed and confused. "Yuuri, what did I do? I'm sorry!"

Yuuri had stumbled backwards, away from Viktor, who looked like he wanted to reach out but was holding himself back.

"I want to wake up." Yuuri sat down on the bench behind him, leaning forward and digging his nails into the skin of his neck that this fake version of Viktor had kissed moments before.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!"

And then he was awake, and he would never, ever, allow himself to kiss Viktor again because now it burned like acid in his gut. This was what he got for taking what wasn't his to take.

The room was dark, but his vision adjusted quickly and he sat there in the grey nothingness of his own inadequacy, sweat-soaked and with the onset of a headache at the base of his skull. He couldn't take being motionless, so he got up and went over to the window and pushed open the curtains. The Cup of China was almost over. After the free skate Viktor would go away with Yuri Plisetsky, or with Chris Giacometti, and maybe Yuuri could go back to his former self. He hadn't been happy before he met Viktor, but he wasn't happy now, either. Still, the knowledge that Viktor would leave as soon as he could felt like a heavy pressure that surrounded him from all sides, like the change in the air just before a thunderstorm. It was stupid, and excessively self-centred, but he felt that he was losing Viktor again, and this time it was his own fault.

 

He was still tired the next day. Getting back to sleep had been just on the right side of possible, but he had still lost a good chunk of sleep. It was his own fault, really. He had allowed these dreams to carry on for weeks and weeks, when he had known from the beginning that nothing good could come from them. All they did was make him wake up with a feeling of loss that rose through him like water as the tide came in whenever he looked at Viktor. He'd never wanted to admit it, but there was no denying anymore. He wanted Viktor. He had feelings for Viktor. He craved his touches and his company, but it didn't matter because Viktor was about to leave.

"You look like you didn't sleep," Celestino greeted him when Yuuri met him and Phichit for breakfast. Yuuri shrugged. Phichit eyed him with a mixture of concern and curiosity.

"How many hours did you get?" Celestino asked.

"Five or six?" Yuuri wasn't sure.

Celestino sighed. "I'm assuming you weren't doing other things when you should have been in bed."

"No. I just didn't sleep well, woke up, and it took a while to get back to sleep."

He could tell from Phichit's expression alone that he was wondering if he had seen Viktor die again.

"Was it anxiety?"

Yuuri wished Celestino would just drop the topic. He shrugged again.

"We might want to think about medication again, if you're having trouble sleeping."

"It was only one night. I'm fine."

"If you say so. Try to take a nap before the afternoon."

Yuuri nodded, and Celestino went back to his breakfast. When he stood up to get another cup of tea from the buffet, Phichit leaned over the table and whispered: "Was it Viktor?"

Yuuri shushed him. "Don't say his name in public!"

"Fine, but is that why you couldn't sleep? That dream again?"

"Sort of."

"I think you need to talk to him."

"About what? He's not in control of it."

Phichit looked as if he was deciding what to say next for a moment.

"You like him, don't you? Don't fuss, I know he's not here."

"How can you tell?" Yuuri said, not sure which part of what Phichit had said he was asking about.

Celestino returned to the table and set his tea down, so Phichit didn't answer. In any case, it didn't matter. All this confusion was about to end. Yuuri was certain that Viktor would not stick around until the Rostelecom Cup. If he wanted to go to Russia he would certainly find a way, even if Chris and Yuri Plisetsky didn't both make it to the Final.

When Viktor joined them at the rink, Yuuri didn't know what to say to him. Viktor looked happy, having spent time with Chris, and Yuuri could see that it really would be best for him to go to Switzerland directly after the Cup of China.

Time seemed to pass in chunks that day. Yuuri had not taken the nap Celestino had ordered. There would have been no sense in lying down and trying; he knew he wouldn't be able to fall asleep. Viktor chattered away happily, perhaps in a well-meaning attempt to distract Yuuri from his nerves, but Yuuri barely listened. When he had put on his costume and waited for the first skater to take the ice, there was a brief moment when no one was paying attention to him except for Viktor.

"Shouldn't you be with Chris?" he said, voice low so that no one would hear.

"What?"

Yuuri decided not to repeat himself. He was stressed, and nervous, and he didn't want to deal with any of this now.

"I thought I was your second coach," Viktor said after a moment.

"You know you don't have to be." He didn't look him in the face, concentrating on properly stretching his legs instead.

"I know," Viktor said. It sounded more like a question than anything else. "Do you want me to go?"

Yuuri didn't answer. What difference did it make? He wasn't going to cling onto the few hours that they were still in the same country. He would hold his head high and pretend he didn't care.

When he lifted his head, Viktor had left. He kept stretching, and fighting the lump in his throat. He should have seen all of this coming. He hugged Phichit to wish him good luck, and followed his performance on the screen. Hearing the other skaters' scores was torturous. He wished he could put his hands over his ears and hum loudly without looking crazy. Phichit's score was phenomenal. He hugged him again when he and Celestino came back to the skaters' area, and Yuuri found that smiling for Phichit was easier than he'd feared.

"Congratulations!" he said, still smiling.

"Thanks, man!" Phichit was grinning from ear to ear, deservedly. "You look bad," he added.

"Great. Thanks."

"No, I'm sorry, I mean you look like you're overthinking. He isn't here, right?"

Yuuri shook his head and looked around to make sure no one was listening. Celestino had gone to fetch Phichit's water bottle from somewhere.

"You know I can read you like a book, sometimes," Phichit said. He was holding Yuuri by the shoulders and searched his face for something.

"I think you want him to stay. You think he'll go away with Chris."

"Of course he'll go."

"Well, have you tried talking to him?"

"It's a bit late for that now."

"Jeez, Yuuri, you've been obsessing over him for half your life. If you can't tell him with words, put it into your skate at least. Tell him you don't want him to go." He squeezed Yuuri's shoulders, and accepted the bottle Celestino was handing him.

"Ready, Yuuri?" Celestino said. Yuuri nodded and followed him to the rink. The noise of the audience hit him like a punch in the stomach, and he felt dizzy for a moment. While they waited for Yuuri's name to be called, Celestino reminded him of parts of the choreography he would need to pay special attention to, and Yuuri nodded through it, half-listening. Viktor would be with Chris and the other skaters, watching him on a screen. At least Yuuri thought that Viktor would watch. Or had he been so rude earlier that Viktor wouldn't care to even watch his performance?

Phichit gave him the thumbs up, and he felt a sudden rush of adrenaline shoot through his body, fizzling out at his fingertips and making it hard to stand still any longer. He heard his name, and stepped onto the ice, as ready as he'd ever be to perform with every pair of eyes in the stadium on him. He took his position in the centre of the ice, and he could feel their gazes brushing over him, some simply anticipating a good show, others more critical, possibly even hostile. Just before the first notes of the music made him spin into action, he decided. He would skate for Viktor, and only Viktor. All the other people scrutinising his every move wouldn't matter if only Phichit was right and he could make Viktor _see_.

The first jumps went over better than expected. He felt more at ease than he normally did, and despite the lack of sleep, his concentration was where he needed it. He thought of Viktor watching, and a flash decision shot through his mind. There was something he could do to be absolutely certain that Viktor would understand.

He didn't care when he made a mistake and had to use his hands on the triple axle, and the slight over-rotation in his most complex combination jump left him cold. The last jump was what mattered now. As long as he didn't mess up completely, his score would still be higher than he would have dreamed of last year. It might still be enough to land him a spot on the podium.

The end of the song approached and he felt the exertion tearing at his muscles, his heart racing in his chest, his breathing controlled with effort. This was the time for the final jump, and he didn't care how many of the ones watching would recognise it for what it was. He launched himself into the air, pushing what remained of his strength into what he needed: to get enough rotations out of the jump.

He knew he wouldn't be able to land perfectly, and he fell, but he was sure it had been enough.

"Quad flip!" He could hear the surprise in the commentators voice as he got back up and finished the program. "Katsuki had planned a quad toe loop but went with a flip, a more difficult jump, and despite his fall it seems that there were enough rotations!"

And there was Viktor, standing right at the edge of the rink where Yuuri's outstretched arm was pointing. He looked shaken, and Yuuri didn't hold back a giddy smile. Multiple cameras were still following him and he had to force himself not to look at Viktor as he passed him. Celestino squeezed his shoulder and Phichit pulled him into another hug, yelling his congratulations into his ear. He couldn't quite feel the exhaustion yet, but he knew that once he sat down to await his score it would be a fight to look as if this had been easy.

He allowed himself another glance at Viktor, who was still standing to the side. Viktor caught his eye and held his gaze. He didn't smile, he looked more as if he might cry, and for a split second Yuuri felt panic and guilt rise inside him, before Viktor touched a hand to his chest and Yuuri realised that he must have done something right.

His score was announced and he found himself hugged from both sides by Phichit and Celestino. It was the silver medal for him, and gold for Phichit.

"I'm so proud of both of you! Well done!" Celestino looked like the adult version of a child who had asked for a pony and then actually found one under the Christmas tree.

Minutes later, they were in the hallway again, and Yuuri managed to slip away as Phichit took on the full attention of everyone around him, shooting him a conspiratorial grin.

Yuuri ducked into a side corridor and headed straight for the bathroom he knew to be far enough away to likely be empty. Viktor was following a few steps behind him, and Yuuri held the door to the men's room open for him. A quick look around confirmed that they were alone, and Yuuri steeled himself for what he wanted to say.

"You were wonderful." Viktor was smiling now, and the praise sounded so genuine that Yuuri felt his cheeks redden.

"Thank you," he said formally.

"You changed the last quad."

Yuuri nodded. He couldn't look him in the eye. He couldn't say it.

"It was impressive, such a hard jump at the very end of the program. No coach would ever have advised you to do it, but you did it anyway, and it worked."

Yuuri stayed quiet, looking at the tiles in front of his feet.

"When I saw it I thought you wanted to tell me something."

Yuuri nodded. He forced himself to look up. Viktor was looking at him expectantly. Yuuri took a deep breath.

"I don't want you to leave."

He waited for Viktor's reaction. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything. He didn't want to hear him say no.

"Then I'll stay," Viktor said. "As long as you want me to."

"It's fine, you don't have to," Yuuri said. He didn't want Viktor to stay just for him, not if he'd rather go with Chris.

"No, I want to. I want to stay with you. Can I?"

It was absurd. Viktor was asking _him_ if he could stay. He nodded, carefully. "As long as you want."

"Good," Viktor said, and smiled. "Now I think you should get back to the others, accept your medal and let yourself be celebrated!"

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Angst/Anxiety
> 
> I'm so, so sorry for this incredibly late update! I really hoped I would be able to write quite a lot over the Christmas break but at the end of the year I just felt drained and couldn't focus. I was also very far from in the right mood to write the content of this chapter, so it took a while.  
> Thank you to anyone who's still here, even after this break. I'm back, and I'll do my best not to let that much time pass again before the next update!  
> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed the chapter!


End file.
